2025
July
Meet the newest T cell checkpoint: CD38
July 23, 2025
Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) can unleash immune responses against a variety of cancers, but its efficacy is often limited by T cell exhaustion. In addition to well established checkpoints like PD-1 and CTLA-4, T cell exhaustion has also been linked to CD38 and NAD+. In recent work published in Cell Reports Medicine, Revach...
Vaccine with ICB sidekick unlock anti-melanoma T cell immunity
July 16, 2025
While personalized neoantigen vaccines have great potential, T cell responses induced by these vaccines often lack strength. Blass, Keskin, et al. aimed to improve T cell antitumor immunity by optimizing vaccine adjuvants and combining the vaccine with ICB. The results of their phase 1 trial in patients with melanoma were recently published in...
Mutant p53 doesn’t just lose functions - it gains them
July 9, 2025
Mutations in the p53 gene are well known drivers of cancer due to the loss of tumor suppressor functions that are maintained by wild-type p53. However, in recent investigations, Mahat et al. found that a common mutant p53, p53R175H in humans and p53R172H in mice, also gained functions that supported the development of...
CD8s get by without a little help from their friends
July 2, 2025
During acute infections, the primary immune response depends on CD4+ T cells providing help to CD8+ T cells. However, many effector CD8+ T cells (Teff) can respond to pathogens independently of helper responses, but these cells respond poorly to pathogen rechallenge. Van der Heide et al. investigated this helpless CD8+ T memory (Tmem)...
