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The interferon seesaw between tumor cells and immune cells determines response to immune checkpoint blockade

Interferon is full of paradoxes. Some patients have cancers with a mutated IFN pathway, but still respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Other patients have high serum levels of IFNγ, but their cancer progresses with ICB treatment. IFNγ can...

Tumor cell-intrinsic EPHA2 suppresses anti-tumor immunity by regulating PTGS2 (COX-2)

Markosyan and Li et al. found that EPHA2 expression negatively correlated with CD8+ T cell infiltration in human and mouse pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). Murine EPHA2-/- tumors increased T ce...

Sustained delivery and molecular targeting of a therapeutic monoclonal antibody to metastases in the central nervous system of mice

Wen and Wu et al. show rituximab (anti-CD20) encapsulated in crosslinked, biodegradable, polymeric nanocapsules sustained drug kinetics in the blood, penetrated rodents’ brains, and was not neurotoxic...

REVIEW: Mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance: lessons from glioblastoma

In this review, Jackson and Lim describe glioblastoma (GBM) as a paradigm for immune resistance mechanisms. GBM resides in an environment where immune cells are largely excluded and where tolerogenic ...

Natural killer cell recruitment and activation are regulated by CD47 expression in the tumor microenvironment

TCGA gene expression data revealed that high NK cell CD47 expression correlated with improved survival, specifically in melanoma. In vitro, treatment of mouse splenic NK cells with anti-CD47 enhanced ...

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Previous Digests

The timing of priming and PD-1 blockade

August 7, 2019

Checkpoint blockade of the PD-1 axis (PD-1 or PD-L1) can be effective in inducing antitumor immunity, although many patients still relapse or fail to derive clinical benefit at all. Combinations of anti-PD-1 treatment with vaccines against tumor-associated antigens or...

CAR T cells get a boost inside lymph nodes

July 31, 2019

With the goal of improving the efficacy of CAR T cells in solid tumors and enhancing their functional persistence in all types of malignancies, Ma et al. developed a strategy to target CAR-detectable ligands to the lymph nodes in...

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to improve anti-CTLA-4 therapy

July 24, 2019

Targeting the checkpoint molecule CTLA-4 using antibodies has been relatively successful as a cancer immunotherapy, however, clinical benefits often come with severe and sometimes dose-limiting immune-related adverse events (irAEs). In a paper recently published in Cell Research, Zhang, Du...

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About ACIR

ACIR's mission is to fast-track Cancer Immunotherapy research by helping researchers stay on top of the new literature in this fast-moving and multifaceted field, fostering their creativity and productivity in bringing us ever closer to curing this deadly disease.

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The field of cancer immunotherapy has exploded in recent years, drawing on the creativity and experience of scientists, clinicians, and patient advocates. ACIR does an incredible job of bringing these groups together toward a common goal of eliminating cancer by disseminating important research findings to the community at large.

— James Allison, PhD

Professor and Chair, Department of Immunology; Executive Director, Immunotherapy Platform; Director, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy; and Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair-Immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

As a researcher bridging the science and clinical translation of the exciting discoveries of cancer immunotherapy, I applaud the efforts of ACIR to help me, my post-docs and students, and my colleagues keep up to date on all the key innovations driving this field. New knowledge continually refines our current thinking and ACIR keeps that new knowledge fresh and at our fingertips.

— Catherine Wu, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School; Institute Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT

There is a critical need to provide reliable information to physicians and researchers. Key limitations are the large amount of data that is being published and the multiple clinical trials available. I welcome the efforts by ACIR to make sense out of all this data and provide a reliable source of information for researchers in cancer immunotherapy.

— Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Surgery, Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California (UCLA); Director of the Tumor Immunology Program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC); Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) Center at UCLA

The work of ACIR is so beautifully targeted on something that has the potential of being truly useful even in the earliest stages. What a great idea!

— John Petricciani, MD

President of the International Alliance for Biological Standardization (IABS); Former Director of the Center for Biologics at FDA and former Chief Medical Officer of the Biologicals Unit at WHO

Our understanding of the interaction between the immune system and cancer cells, and also the ways to exploit this interaction clinically, is growing faster than ever before. There is no reliable source of information that can help clinicians and researchers in this field stay up-to-date, and by filling this gap, ACIR facilitates the development of effective cancer immunotherapies for an increasing number of patient groups.

— Ton Schumacher, PhD

Deputy Director of the Netherlands Cancer Institute; Professor of Immunotechnology at Leiden University, The Netherlands; Chief Scientific Officer of Kite Pharma EU; SU2C-CRI Immunotherapy Dream Team member

Cancer Immunotherapy is providing patients with novel and durable treatments and the number of available therapies keeps growing. The mission of ACIR is to accelerate the pace by which the field develops through mapping out the research and clinical landscapes and keeping track of key advances in the field. It has my total support!!

— Robert D. Schreiber, PhD

Alumni Endowed Professor of Pathology and Immunology and Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine, MO; Director of the Washington University Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs; Associate Director of the Scientific Advisory Board to the CRI

I fully support the important initiative of ACIR. The field of cancer immunotherapy grows at an exciting pace. Staying on top of foundational discoveries in the field, which is conveniently processed on ACIR, is key for coming up with important new hypotheses about immunotherapeutic cancer treatment strategies.

— Glenn Dranoff, MD, PhD

Global Head of Immuno-Oncology, Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research

I fully endorse the mission of ACIR to provide a weekly synopsis of the scientific literature in cancer immunotherapy. The value of this approach has been clearly demonstrated by a program I have been involved in with the Prize4Life Foundation, which is dedicated to curing ALS. ALS Forum provides ALS research summaries as well as other content related to clinical trials and is widely used by the ALS research community to keep up to date.

— Tom Maniatis, PhD

Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York, and Director of the University wide Columbia Precision Medicine Initiative (CPMI)

ACIR has identified a great way to meet the critical need of researchers and clinicians everywhere to stay up to date with the literature in the fast moving and life-saving field of cancer immunotherapy. This will be a fine living tribute to your son Matt and has the potential to help many future cancer victims!

— James S. Economou, MD, PhD

Beaumont Professor of Surgery, Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

I am pleased to voice my support for the mission of ACIR to keep cancer immunotherapy researchers up to date with the current advancements in the field. Given the magnitude of new information emerging from this field, I particularly appreciate their efforts to both identify and highlight the key advancements each week and to distill the new information to key take-away points that can be easily grasped.

— Nir Hacohen, PhD

Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director, MGH Center for Cancer Immunology; Institute Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT

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