The immune system’s B cells create antibodies that can mount a response against just about anything—either destroying a pathogen or instructing the rest of the immune system to go after the offender. But what happens when these antibodies malfunction?

Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have identified the previously unknown mechanism for how immune cells can go back and self-edit the genes that code for these antibodies, essentially recycling them into newer versions.

The workings of this new mechanism, published in Nature, were uncovered in the laboratory of Frederick Alt, Ph.D., of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s and a Howard Hughes Medical Center Investigator.