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A Fountain of Youth for T cell Function

With advancing age comes a decrease in immune function, which can also dampen responses to immunotherapy. Investigating this, Nakajima et al. compared T cell subsets, based on their expression of CD44 and CD62L, in young versus aged mice. Among CD8+...

Tim-4+ Cavity-Resident Macrophages Impair Anti-Tumor CD8+ T cell Immunity

Chow et al. showed that pleural and peritoneal cavity-resident Tim-4+ (a phosphatidylserine (PS) receptor) macrophages suppress the efficacy of immunotherapies in these anatomic spaces. Metastatic inv...

Targeted delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 and transgenes enables complex immune cell engineering

To facilitate genetic editing of T cells without electroporation, Hamilton and Tsuchida et al. used virus-like particles to deliver Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes (Cas9-VLPs). Cas9-VLPs targeting B2...

In situ delivery of iPSC-derived dendritic cells with local radiotherapy generates systemic antitumor immunity and potentiates PD-L1 blockade in preclinical poorly immunogenic tumor models

Oba and Makino et al. generated iPSC-derived cDC2s. In syngeneic orthotopic mouse models of immunologically cold melanoma and breast cancer, intratumoral iPSC-DC injection + tumor irradiation (RT) syn...

REVIEW: Cancer-associated fibroblasts: Key players in shaping the tumor immune microenvironment

Desbois and Wang summarized the roles of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the TME and their impact on immunotherapy efficacy. Using FAP, SMA, and CD29 markers, four functionally distinct CAF po...

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Previous Digests

IL-10 rejuvenates your exhausted T cells

June 9, 2021

While immunotherapies work great in some patients, for most, results are limited. One reason for the limited therapeutic response is the induction of an “exhausted” phenotype in CD8+ TILs. Aiming to reinvigorate exhausted CD8+ TILs in the TME, Guo...

Anti-CD40 agonist antibodies may be the way to go for bladder cancer

June 2, 2021

When patients are diagnosed with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, intermediate- to high-risk patients typically undergo transurethral tumor resection, followed by intravesical treatment with Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) as the standard of care. However, up to 75% of patients ultimately become unresponsive...

New target can put the brakes on macrophage and Treg immune suppression

May 26, 2021

Given that only a subset of patients responds to current checkpoint inhibition therapies, the search for new immune checkpoint targets continues. Sharma et al. identified and investigated one such new target, LILRB4, in mouse and human tumors, and assessed...

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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

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