Nature Reviews Cancer, Published online: 15 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s41568-026-00977-1Viral mimicry is the activation of antiviral immune responses by endogenous nucleic acids that have accumulated in the cytosol. In this Review, Chen et al. highlight how cancer-associated epigenetic and transcriptional dysregulation promotes the generation of immunogenic nucleic acids, which can limit tumour progression. They further outline the mechanisms tumours use to suppress these responses, and the evidence that escape from viral mimicry is central to tumour evolution and a potential target for therapy.

An emerging hallmark of disease is transcription of pathogen-associated molecular patterns from within the genome–known as viral mimicry. We propose a statistical physics framework to measure “selecti...

The winners of this year’s Canadian science prizes are all based in the United States, where Trump-era cutbacks to research and medical regulation have sown doubt in the future

Abstract. Epigenetic therapies facilitate transcription of immunogenic repetitive elements that cull cancer cells through ‘viral mimicry’ responses. Paradoxically, cancer-initiating events also facili...