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T cells burn out just a few hours after encountering cancer tumors
(arstechnica.com)
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I mean it read to me like they were saying that cytotoxic T cells became permanently dysfunctional (the term “exhausted” is used in the paper this news article is about) when encountering cancer cells. I’m not sure I see why the title is incorrect.
IMO the title is incorrect because the common interpretation of getting "burned out" is that of the same individuals of a population losing effectiveness after working hard. The article even likens the term "exhausted" the same interpretation of the phrase:
This same quote describes the truth of the phenomenon where it's not individuals getting "exhausted", but cellular signalling permanently altering the expression of T cells to make them less and less effective.
A more correct title would be something like:
Ahh, That makes sense.