immunotherapy tagged posts

Engineering T cells to Attack Cancer Broadly

Through T cell engineering, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center show that it’s possible to arrest tumor growth for a variety of cancers and squash the spread of cancer to other tissues. This research will be published in tomorrow’s print edition of Cancer Research.

The paper builds on decades of research by study co-senior author Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., a member of Massey’s Cancer Biology research program, who discovered a protein called IL-24 that attacks a variety of cancers in several different ways.

In this latest study, Fisher teamed up with his colleague Xiang-Yang (Shawn) Wang, Ph.D...

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New Immunotherapy to Beat Cancer

Sophie Lucas (University of Louvain de Duve Institute) and her team succeeded in neutralising a molecule that blocks the immune system against cancer. UCLouvain scientists discovered that this new immunotherapy increases the action of another well-known but not always effective immunotherapy, and that it makes tumour regression possible. This very promising discovery in the fight against cancer is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Cancer immunotherapy is the manipulation of the immune responses naturally present in the human body to fight cancer. Often, these immune responses are blocked by cells or molecules that prevent them from killing cancer cells, and the tumour is able to establish itself and grow.

In 2004, Sophie Lucas, researcher at the University of Louva...

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Researchers discover the Microbiome’s role in attacking Cancerous Tumors

The Microbiome's Role in Attacking Cancerous Tumors | Technology ...
Microbiome-derived inosine modulates response to checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapyScience, 2020; eabc3421 DOI

Researchers with the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) have discovered which gut bacteria help our immune system battle cancerous tumours and how they do it. The discovery may provide a new understanding of why immunotherapy, a treatment for cancer that helps amplify the body’s immune response, works in some cases, but not others. The findings, published in Science, show combining immunotherapy with specific microbial therapy boosts the ability of the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells in some melanoma, bladder and colorectal cancers.

Dr...

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Cancer cells’ Immune Weak Spot revealed

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Scientists have found a vulnerability in cancer cells that could make them more susceptible to being destroyed by the immune system, according to a new report in eLife. The discovery could make it possible to circumvent the resistance starting to be seen with a new generation of immunotherapy treatments called checkpoint inhibitors.

Scientists have been heralding immunotherapy treatments as breakthroughs in cancer research as they have prolonged life in some people with previously untreatable cancers. However, not everyone responds to immunotherapy and recent studies suggest that some cancers are able to escape the effects of checkpoint inhibitor drugs...

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