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Vaccine + chemo activate immune response against cervical cancer

While a therapeutic human papilloma virus type 16 (HPV16) vaccine can effectively promote an immune response and subsequent durable regressions of HPV16-induced premalignant lesions, it has shown no clinical benefit in patients with late-stage HPV16...

NK cells mediate clearance of CD8+ T cell-resistant tumors in response to STING agonists

Nicolai et al. showed that intratumoral injection of cyclic dinucleotides (CDN) – activators of cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-stimulator of type I IFN genes (STING) – induced murine NK cells  (independ...

Combination of PD1 Inhibitor and OX40 Agonist Induces Tumor Rejection and Immune Memory in Mouse Models of Pancreatic Cancer

Ma et al. show that in anti-PD-1-refractory pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), agonist (ag)-OX40 alone, and more robustly in combination with anti-PD-1, prolonged survival and developed persiste...

Platelet P-selectin initiates cross-presentation and dendritic cell differentiation in blood monocytes

To improve the success of in vitro maturation of monocytes to effective dendritic cells, Han and Hanlon et al. found that the presence of activated (P-selectin-presenting) platelets rapidly matured mu...

T cell recruitment triggered by optimal dose platinum compounds contributes to the therapeutic efficacy of sequential PD-1 blockade in a mouse model of colon cancer

Varying the dosage of platinum anticancer drugs, Fu et al. observed that low-dose (10mg/kg) cisplatin or oxaliplatin reduced toxicity, increased T cell numbers in blood, and synergized with anti-PD-1 ...

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Previous Digests

Release the B7.1! Anti-PD-L1 breaks PD-L1’s grip

April 1, 2020

Blocking the PD-1/PD-L1 axis using anti-PD-L1 antibodies is a commonly employed immunotherapeutic strategy to prevent PD-1-mediated inhibition of T cells by tumor cells. Suspecting that the mechanism of action of PD-L1 blockade might be more complex, however, Mayoux et...

Special announcement

March 25, 2020

To All Our Readers, The COVID-19 crisis has dominated the world's attention and caused major changes in all our lives. To give our team members the chance to adjust to this ever-intensifying landscape we decided to take a brief ...

Bee venom throws a one-two punch to kill the tumor

March 18, 2020

Targeting the tumor where it lives and turning the tumor against itself was what Yu and Dai et al. had in mind when they developed a one-two punch nanovaccine comprising a lipid nanoparticle (NP) loaded with melittin (a peptide...

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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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