Think about how over-the-counter anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen work. They block a particular signal. But Serhan discovered that aspirin works differently (and in a multi-faceted way): rather than blocking inflammatory signals, it attenuates them. In addition, it has mild anti-coagulant properties that are beneficial in atherosclerosis. And perhaps most importantly, aspirin stimulates the production of at least two classes of health-promoting SPMs. In work published as this magazine went to press, Serhan and colleagues showed that aspirin stimulates the production of a distinct type of SPM that fights cancer tumors in mice, and another SPM that inhibits cancer tumor formation in the first place - harvardmagazine.com