Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a promising treatment for cancer, but it still has its problems. Now researchers have identified a “jamming signal” that cancer uses to hide from the immune system, and engineered a synthetic immune cell that can fight back.

The immune system is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against cancer, but sometimes it needs a little extra help. In a new study, researchers have developed a new way to summon a wider variety of immune cells to target tumors.

Immunotherapy involves supercharging the immune system to better root out cancer from its hiding places, and now researchers at EPFL have discovered a sneaky new tactic the disease uses, and suggested a way to overcome it.

Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have combined three immunotherapy agents in mice with brain cancer to achieve impressive results that they liken to long-term remission in human patients.

A “cytokine storm” is a dangerous kind of immune overreaction that can be triggered by infection or other treatments. Now, MIT researchers have engineered proteins that show early promise in mopping up these overzealous immune cells.

A new immunotherapy delivery system could make cancer-killing immune cells far more effective by strategically inflaming so-called cold tumors so T cells can detect and destroy them with much greater efficiency.

A novel form of cancer immunotherapy has shown exceptional promise in a new clinical trial, with 93 percent responding positively. The treatment involves supercharging a patient’s immune cells to fight cancer then reintroducing them to the body.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center are reporting an exciting advance in the field of immunotherapy, demonstrating that engineered bone marrow cells can slow the growth of prostate and pancreatic cancers in mice.

One trick cancer cells use to evade an attack by the body's immune system is to shield themselves behind a particular type of healthy cell, but scientists at the University of Southampton have now found a new way to intervene in this process.

Ideally fighting cancer would be as simple as a vaccine, and scientists are taking steps towards that. Now, researchers have developed a way to make vaccine molecules bigger, so they don’t disperse in the blood stream before reaching their target.

The results are in from a human clinical trial using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system to treat cancer. The study involved editing the immune cells of three cancer patients, and the treated cells persisted and didn’t trigger dangerous side effects.

As promising as immunotherapy is against cancer, these therapies aren’t entirely without risk. But now scientists have developed an emergency brake drug that can switch off the treatment if it begins to spiral out of control.