Cancer immunotherapy tagged posts

Researchers Identify why Cancer Immunotherapy can cause Colitis

green background intestines in pink
Jacob Dwyer, Michigan Medicine

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center have identified a mechanism that causes severe gastrointestinal problems with immune-based cancer treatment.

They also found a way to deliver immunotherapy’s cancer-killing impact without the unwelcome side effect.

The findings are published in Science.

“This is a good example of how understanding a mechanism helps you to develop an alternative therapy that’s more beneficial. Once we identified the mechanism causing the colitis, we could then develop ways to overcome this problem and prevent colitis while preserving the anti-tumor effect,” said senior study author Gabriel Nunez, M.D., Paul de Kruif Professor of Pathology at Michigan Medicine.

Immunotherapy has emerged as a pr...

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Cancer Immunotherapy may also treat certain Autoimmune diseases

Cancer
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers has found disrupting the interaction between cancer cells and certain immune cells is more effective at killing cancer cells than current immunotherapy treatments.

The findings, which include studies in cell lines and animal models, appeared in JCI Insight and focus on a protein called CD6 as a target for a new approach to immunotherapy.

Over the past two decades, new approaches to cancer treatment have been developed that block immune checkpoints, which are receptors on the surface of certain immune cells, like natural killer T cells. Cancer exploits these immune cells and render them dormant.

This treatment, called checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, gives these immune cells a chance to fight back...

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Immunotherapy-Resistant Cancers Eliminated in Mouse Study

Immune cells infiltrate a human tumor in the four colorized images above. In a mouse study, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that an antibody that targets the protein TREM2 empowers tumor-destroying immune cells and improves the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy. WILLIAM VERMI/MARTINA MOLGORA

In a mouse study, researchers have found that an antibody that targets the protein TREM2 empowers tumor-destroying immune cells and improves the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by stimulating the patient’s own immune system to attack cancer cells, yielding remarkably quick and complete remission in some cases...

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New research identifies gene that Hides Cancer cells from Immunotherapy

Highlights

•The early embryonic transcription factor DUX4 is active in many human cancers
•DUX4-expressing cancers are characterized by low anti-tumor immune activity
•DUX4 blocks interferon-γ-mediated induction of MHC class I and antigen presentation
•DUX4 is significantly associated with failure to respond to anti-CTLA-4 therapy

A team at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has identified a gene that could make immunotherapy treatments, specifically checkpoint inhibitors, work for a wider variety of cancer patients. The study, published today in Developmental Cell, found that when the DUX4 gene is expressed in cancer cells, it can prevent the cancer from being recognized and destroyed by the immune system.

The team, led by Drs...

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