New research from physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and scientists at the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard have discovered the mechanisms that cause some cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) to develop myocarditis, a dangerous and potentially fatal form of heart inflammation. The research, published…

A mechanism by which natural killer (NK) cells impede immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in cancer treatment has been uncovered by researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University Medical Center Mannheim (UMM). The team found that the immunoglobulin superfamily ligand B7H6 promotes cytolysis of activated T cells…

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have shown that mutations in the STK11 and/or KEAP1 tumor suppressor genes could serve as biomarkers for identifying lung cancer patients likely to benefit from dual immune checkpoint blockade. The study, published in Nature “advances precision medicine for a substantial fraction…

A recent study from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, has uncovered distinct immune “signatures” that could help identify cancer patients at higher risk for developing serious side effects from immunotherapy. By analyzing immune responses in patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, researchers…

Over the last decade, immune checkpoint inhibitors have dramatically shifted the treatment and outcomes for patients with advanced melanoma. In a new publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, the final 10-year results of the 945-person, phase III CheckMate 067 trial were reported. This puts a close on the…

Yesterday, Boehringer Ingelheim announced it is acquiring Nerio Therapeutics, which has novel checkpoint inhibitors, for up to $1.3 billion. The pharma company aims to develop this program as a “potential key centerpiece component for its immuno-oncology portfolio,” according to a release. Nerio’s small molecules inhibit the proteins tyrosine phosphatases N1…

A preclinical study by Cleveland Clinic researchers reveals that the immune checkpoint protein VISTA can turn off tumor-fighting T cells during immunotherapy and resist treatment. The work using mouse models, showed that VISTA can bind to a protein called LRIG1 in T cells, which was previously only thought to promote…

A new treatment that combines a personalized dendritic cell vaccine with the immune-boosting substance poly-ICLC has been shown to enhance the immune response and activity of T cells in patients with malignant glioma. The addition of poly-ICLC improves dendritic cells’ ability to treat the brain tumor than the vaccine alone,…

Most pancreatic tumors are surrounded by a thick, nearly impenetrable wall of fibrosis— scar tissue—that makes it hard for drugs to access and destroy the cancer cells. Researchers at the Salk Institute have now discovered how a class of anticancer drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) can help treat pancreatic…

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is an estimated $35B+ market already with multiple cancer indication approvals, but to date, neoadjuvant ICB therapy is only FDA-approved in non-small-cell (NSC) lung cancer and triple-negative breast cancer. This fact masks the huge potential, in both the clinic and research lab, of this class of…

Adult patients with advanced midline gliomas have been treated with a peptide vaccine for the first time, according to researchers from Heidelberg and Mannheim, Germany. The vaccine mimicked a mutational change in a histone protein (H3K27M) that is a marker for this difficult-to-treat type of brain tumor. The vaccine proved…

A study from MIT reveals a new reason why checkpoint inhibitors may not work on some tumors. In mice, a tumor’s mutation diversity was much more useful for predicting the treatment’s effectiveness than measuring the overall number of mutations, which was previously thought to be key. The more heterogeneous tumors…

Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have identified a membrane protein on the surface of cancer cells that supports and stabilizes an important factor involved in T-cell activation, thus potentially improving the anti-tumoral immune response. In recent years, Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as the anti-PD-L1 antibody nivolumab have…

A new type of checkpoint inhibitor targeting bone metastases is being investigated at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, thanks to a $2.3M award from the Department of Defense’s Breast Cancer Research Program. Bone metastases are common among patients with solid tumors, such as those of the breast, colon,…

New research published in Nature Cancer from investigators at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center shows that a combination of immunotherapies targeting both T cells and myeloid suppressor cells was able to reprogram the tumor immune microenvironment and improved anti-tumor response in pancreatic cancer models. The team used comprehensive immune…