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CTLA-4 and PD-1 set the limits on T cell differentiation

Positive and negative costimulatory molecules on T cells are known to play a role in T cell activation, however, whether they play a role in T cell differentiation (along with TCR signal strength and cytokine signaling) is not as well defined....

REVIEW: The promise of neoadjuvant immunotherapy and surgery for cancer treatment

O’Donnell and Hoefsmit et al. argue that neoadjuvant immunotherapy may be superior to adjuvant immunotherapy in combination with surgery. Preclinical and limited clinical evidence supports the hypothe...

Costimulation Induces CD4 T Cell Antitumor Immunity via an Innate-like Mechanism

Morales Del Valle et al. developed a mouse model chronically exposing a tumor-unrelated antigen on MHC-II+CD11c+ DCs, and showed that antigen-specific CD4+ T cells can differentiate into effectors in ...

PD-1+ regulatory T cells amplified by PD-1 blockade promote hyperprogression of cancer

After 4 of 36 gastric cancer patients treated with anti-PD-1 developed hyperprogressive disease (HPD), Kamada, Togashi, and Tay et al. analyzed the pre-treatment and post-treatment tumor samples and d...

Differential effects of depleting versus programming tumor-associated macrophages on engineered T cells in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Stromnes et al. combined mesothelin-specific CD8+ T cell (TCRMSLN) transfer with two tumor-associated macrophage (TAM)-targeting strategies in murine pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). TCRMSLN ce...

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Previous Digests

Targeting tumor collagen hits the immunotherapeutic sweet spot

May 8, 2019

While immune checkpoint inhibitors and cytokine treatments have demonstrated efficacy against several types of cancer, they frequently cause severe side effects due to excessive and widespread off-tumor activation of the immune system. In a paper recently published in Science...

Too much of a good thing: why KIT inhibitors stop working

May 1, 2019

Constitutive signaling from a single mutation in the KIT proto-oncogene can be sufficient to drive the formation of a gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). These tumors constitutively express immunosuppressive IDO, which dampens dendritic cell-primed effector CD8+ T cell responses. Previous...

The priming power of cDC2s

April 24, 2019

While researchers often focus on CD8+ T cells in antitumor immunity, many studies have shown critical roles for CD4+ T cell responses as well. In order to better understand the context in which antitumor CD4+ T cell responses are...

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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