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Radiotherapy from the inside out? TRT enhances immunotherapy

In the setting of cancer, radiotherapy can directly damage or kill tumor cells, and can act as an in situ vaccine that triggers antitumor immunity; the contribution of each of these mechanisms varies based on the dose. In most cases, radiation is...

Acquired resistance to anti-MAPK targeted therapy confers an immune-evasive tumor microenvironment and cross-resistance to immunotherapy in melanoma

Haas et al. demonstrated that resistance to targeted therapy (TT) in melanoma leads to activation of a cancer cell–intrinsic signaling program with enhanced and altered transcriptional output associat...

Anti-tumor effects of RTX-240: an engineered red blood cell expressing 4-1BB ligand and interleukin-15

McArdel et al. showed that red blood cell progenitors transduced in vitro to express immunomodulators, and then cultured through expansion, differentiation, and maturation phases, gave rise to a candi...

Neoantigen vaccination induces clinical and immunologic responses in non-small cell lung cancer patients harboring EGFR mutations

In a phase I trial, 24 late-stage NSCLC patients were immunized with personal neoantigen peptides (based on mutations detected by a 508 gene oncogene panel) and topical Imiquimod. The treatment was sa...

Combining CD47 blockade with trastuzumab eliminates HER2-positive breast cancer cells and overcomes trastuzumab tolerance

To address resistance that occurs in the majority of advanced HER2+ breast cancer following trastuzumab therapy, Upton et al. evaluated trastuzumab combined with macrophage checkpoint immunotherapy. I...

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Previous Digests

A20 downregulation: a strength and a weakness for cancer

July 21, 2021

Although immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy has shown impressive benefits in treating lung cancer, only a minority (~20%) of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) respond to anti-PD-1/anti-PD-L1 therapy. The reasons are incompletely understood, but the tumor microenvironment and...

T<FR> are the new suppressive kids on the block for tumors

July 14, 2021

Regulatory T cells (Treg) can differentiate into follicular regulatory T cells (TFR) that have important roles in secondary lymphoid organs and may have higher suppressive activity. However, their role in antitumor immunity has not been elucidated. Eschweiler et al...

In some tissues, tumors are not seen as a prime suspect

July 7, 2021

Clinically, heterogeneous immune responses have been detected between patients, between tumors in the same patient, and even by disease site. Some tumor microenvironments (TME) are typically immune cold and respond poorly to immunotherapy, such as pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDAC)...

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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