A panel of 14 paraffin embedded lung biopsies taken from non-tumour adjacent tissue (as assessed by a trained pathologist) of patients undergoing lobectomy for their cancers (9 having COPD, 5 non-COPD controls, Table 1) was available for examination of protein expression and subcellular localisation of AIM2/cleaved IL-1β, and quantitative analysis of their specks. Here, IL1B is linked to cancer.