Featured

What drives glycolysis in tumors, and how to stop it

In an effort to investigate epigenetic mechanisms that contribute to tumor immune evasion, Liu, Liang, Xu, Dong, and Dong et al. recently explored the connection between the RNA demethylase FTO, increased glycolysis in tumor cells, and reduced T cell...

SynNotch-CAR T cells overcome challenges of specificity, heterogeneity, and persistence in treating glioblastoma

Choe et al. combined synthetic Notch (SynNotch) receptors that recognize specific priming antigens, such as EGFRvIII or a CNS-specific non-tumor antigen (MOG), with a tandem CAR that simultaneously ta...

SynNotch CAR circuits enhance solid tumor recognition and promote persistent antitumor activity in mouse models

Hyrenius-Wittsten et al. identified alkaline phosphatase placental-like 2 (ALPPL2) as a tumor-specific antigen expressed in a spectrum of solid tumors, and engineered synthetic Notch (synNotch) CAR co...

Select hyperactivating NLRP3 ligands enhance the T(H)1- and T(H)17-inducing potential of human type 2 conventional dendritic cells

Hatscher et al. showed that resting and activated cDC2s enriched from fresh human blood, spleen, and thymus are the main DCs to respond functionally and transcriptionally to extracellular pathogen-ass...

Complete rejection of large established breast cancer by local immunochemotherapy with T cell activation against neoantigens

Combining intratumoral adriamycin chemotherapy, CpG, and anti-OX40 (altogether COA) improved therapeutic efficacy over the mono- or dual therapies, regressing treated and contralateral untreated 4T1 t...

See all for this week

Previous Digests

Making the cut: exitrons as a new source of neoantigens

April 28, 2021

Exitrons are internal regions of an exon that have both protein-coding and splicing potential. When these exitrons are spliced, it may lead to protein isoforms, including in-frame deletions, as well as out-of-frame neo open reading frames. As not much...

AACR Annual Meeting 2021

April 21, 2021

Last week, the ACIR team attended the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. This week’s extensive special feature covers select talks from the conference. We have organized the content by topics below. Tumor microenvironment and effective immunotherapySergio QuezadaTheresa KolbenAntoni RibasIra...

DCs can TAP out of ordinary cross-presentation

April 14, 2021

Our classic understanding of antigen presentation to CD8+ T cells involves transport of cytosolic peptides into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP), where they can be loaded onto MHC class I molecules through...

See More Digests

Watch ACIR in action

In November 2019, ACIR received the Visionary Award from the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.

Watch the 3-minute video explaining ACIR's mission and goal:

In September 2020, ACIR was featured in the documentary The American Dream on Bloomberg TV.

Watch the 6-minute segment on the story behind your favorite digest here:

Donate to support researchers

Everything New In...

Experimental Immunotherapy

Innovative Methods

Cancer Immunobiology

Popular Tags

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.

More About Us

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