2018
May
2:1 T cell bispecific antibody doubles down against hematological malignancies
May 30, 2018
Approved therapies for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, including the anti-CD20 antibody Rituximab, can be highly effective, but for patients who do not respond or who relapse, there are few options. In their paper published recently in Clinical Cancer Research, Bacac et al. describe their approach towards aggressive lymphomas by combining a high avidity CD20 T...
There’s just something about them: predicting response to CAR T cell therapy
May 23, 2018
CD19-directed CAR T cell therapy is a revolutionary tool in the fight against leukemias, however, in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia only a small subset benefits. In order to better predict which patients are likely to respond to therapy, and to explore strategies that might expand the portion of responding patients, Fraietta et...
Dendritic cells go viral to achieve immortality
May 16, 2018
Current methods for preparing dendritic cells (DCs) for cancer vaccine immunotherapy, utilizing antigen-loaded monocyte-derived DCs (MoDCs) that are activated via a complex process, result in DCs that are difficult to maintain in culture, have low growth potential, and require repeated preparations for several rounds of vaccine delivery. In a paper recently published in...
M2-like TAMs tamed by anti-CSF1R and anti-PD-1 combination therapy
May 9, 2018
To uncover why anti-PD-1 therapy fails in the majority of melanomas, Neubert et al. investigated the role of colony-stimulating factor 1 (CSF1) in creating a protumorigenic, macrophage-rich microenvironment. CSF1 is an important regulator of both monocytes and macrophages and controls proliferation and survival of macrophages from their precursors. The results of their experiments...
Go whole or go home: a DC vaccine clinical trial
May 2, 2018
Multiple whole tumor cell, tumor cell lysate, and tumor cell RNA vaccines, delivered with various adjuvants or via dendritic cells (DCs), have previously been tested in the clinic with moderate and sometimes interesting results. In a recent article published in Science Translational Medicine, Tanyi et al. report results from a pilot study with...
