This ‘self’ signal has been revealed to form part of the host immune‐escape strategy of malignant cells by high‐expressing CD47; that is, the ‘self’ signal is harnessed as a ‘don't eat me’ signal to allow the cancer cell to escape from the host immune system (Chao et al., 2010; Edris et al., 2012; Jaiswal et al., 2009; Weiskopf et al., 2013). Here, CD47 is linked to cancer.