Crucially, antibodies (Abs) against PD-1 reinvigorated the CD8 T cell response during chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection demonstrating that exhaustion could be overcome (Barber et al., 2006; Pauken et al., 2016), and preclinical cancer models established the efficacy of targeting the PD-1:PD-L1 pathway to limit tumor growth (Blank et al., 2004; Iwai et al., 2005). Here, CD8A is linked to cancer.