T Cells Attack and Lymph Node Labyrinth: Genentech's immunity games

The Cancer-Immunity Cycle was described by Chen and Mellman in a 2013 review in the journal Immunity titled Oncology meets immunology: the cancer-immunity cycle. It lays out as a loop the steps by which the immune system recognizes and kills cancer cells, and cancer immunotherapy research uses it as a framework. Cancer cells can disguise themselves as normal cells, and the aim of immunotherapy is to switch the body's own immune response on against them.

Ayogo made each mini-game around a different step of the cycle, aiming to educate players about the science underneath immunotherapy.

T Cells Attack is a shooting-gallery game. Every cell looks healthy at the start, and the player has to decloak the sick ones so that the immune system can attack them. The game can be won: clearing all the cancerous and possibly cancerous cells and leaving only healthy ones ends it in victory at any point on the game clock.

In Lymph Node Labyrinth the player is a dendritic cell. Dendritic cells capture antigens that cancer cells release and present them to T cells, which become activated. The task is to remember the way through the labyrinth, activate T cells and get them out into the bloodstream.

Each game takes a different step of the cycle and turns it into play: T Cells Attack covers the moment T cells attack, and Lymph Node Labyrinth covers the early steps in which antigens are captured and presented to T cells. Each game works alone, and playing both gives a fuller picture. They are described as mainly entertainment, meant to raise awareness of and interest in the science, and not as scientifically accurate models.

At the time of the award the games were optimized for recent Macs and PCs running Chrome, Internet Explorer 10, Firefox or Safari, and for the iPhone 6 and recent iPads, with possible performance problems on older devices.

As of November 2026 Genentech hosts both games on its own site. The pages carry the titles T Cells Attack: The epic game of the Cancer-Immunity Cycle and Lymph Node Labyrinth. They are ordinary web pages that load their own game code, and no plug-in is named. The addresses are the same ones that were in use at the time of the award. Genentech also hosts a page titled The Cancer-Immunity Cycle in its stories section.