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Flt3L fuels DCs to promote ICB-responsive Tpex cells

An important predictor of response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is the presence of precursor exhausted T cells (Tpex) in the tumor. Conventional type 1 DCs (cDC1) are known to maintain these Tpex, and modulation of these factors might promote...

16-h fasting optimizes cancer immunotherapy in mice and humans

Chen et al. designed an overnight 16h fasting regimen that augmented ICB efficacy in mice and patients with colorectal cancer. Fasting reprogrammed tumor cell nutrient preferences, triggering a metabo...

Ex vivo expansion of melanoma tumor infiltrating lymphocytes leads to a dominant exhausted T cell population with lack of memory markers

Using scRNA- and scTCRseq profiling, Coppola and Kerr et al. showed that large changes were induced during ex vivo expansion of TIL samples from six patients with metastatic melanoma. Post-expansion T...

Mutant KRAS vaccine with dual checkpoint blockade in resected pancreatic cancer: a phase I trial

Huff et al. investigated a pooled peptide vaccine covering six KRAS mutations, plus ipilimumab and nivolumab in resected PDAC. mKRAS-specific T cell responses emerged in 11/12 patients, and 4/12 remai...

Sensitive detection of cancer antigens enabled by user-defined peptide libraries

To support more sensitive immunopeptidomics analyses, Manakongtreecheep and Ctortecka et al. developed Pepyrus to rapidly and scalably generate user-defined peptide libraries in E. coli that could pro...

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Previous Digests

Deep and durable T cell responses after oncolytic viral therapy in glioblastoma

February 18, 2026

In a recent clinical trial, patients with glioblastoma (GBM) were treated with a single dose of an oHSV-1-based oncolytic viral therapy, rQNestin34.5v.2 (CAN-3110, linoserpaturev), in which expression of the viral ICP34.5 gene was controlled by the nestin promoter, overexpressed...

Good things come in threes: results from clinical trials to improve checkpoint blockade

February 11, 2026

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has become a staple in the treatment of numerous cancers, but its efficacy could still be improved. Recently, three separate clinical trials explored strategies to improve ICB in the clinic. In one study, Duttagupta, Messaoudene...

BACH2 orchestrates T cell differentiation and can be used to optimize cellular immunotherapies

February 4, 2026

Adoptive T cell transfer (ACT) and CAR-T treatment strategies are limited in their efficacy against solid tumors, as chronic antigen exposure induces exhaustion phenotypes, with reduced proliferation and effector function, limited persistence, and reduced therapeutic efficacy as consequences. Three...

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