2019
December
Like coffee for T cells, c-Jun mediates resistance to exhaustion
December 18, 2019
In an effort to understand and overcome exhaustion in adoptively transferred CAR T cells, Lynn et al. developed a cellular model for exhaustion and interrogated its programming. Their results, recently published in Nature, reveal a critical role for the transcription factor component c-Jun (part of the canonical AP-1 c-Fos–c-Jun heterodimer) in preventing exhaustion...
ACIR receives Visionary Award
December 13, 2019
Dear Friends, All of us at ACIR are very proud and humbled to have received a Cambridge Chamber of Commerce Visionary Award for helping researchers stay on top of new literature in the fast-moving cancer immunotherapy field. ACIR helps thousands of researchers at once by supporting the immediate application of up-to-date knowledge that...
Without CD4+ T cell help, cytotoxic effectors would not exist
December 11, 2019
Aiming to understand the mechanism behind CD4+ T cell help in regulating CD8+ T cell differentiation in the context of chronic infection and cancer, Zander and Schauder et al. utilized single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) to analyze the transcriptional profiles and differentiation pathways of CD8+ T cells during chronic viral infection. The results, recently...
Fighting toxicity with transience by using IL-12 mRNA
December 4, 2019
T cells that are genetically engineered to produce IL-12 are highly effective against tumors, but are also highly toxic. To overcome this toxicity, Etxeberria et al. engineered tumor-specific CD8+ T cells that transiently express IL-12 by electroporating them with mRNA. Their results, recently published in Cancer Cell, show that intratumoral adoptive transfer of...
