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COVID-19 mRNA vaccines provide a surprising boost to ICB therapy efficacy

Improving the efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) for a larger group of patients, particularly those with immune-cold tumors, is one of the major goals of current immunotherapy research. Based on case reports of patients who had spontaneous...

Collagen-binding IL-12-armoured STEAP1 CAR-T cells reduce toxicity and treat prostate cancer in mouse models

Sasaki et al. addressed the toxicity of IL-12 that has caused dose-limiting immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Compared to unmodified IL-12, fusing a collagen-binding domain to IL-12 (CBD–IL-12) i...

Engineering T cells with a membrane-tethered version of SLP-76 overcomes antigen-low resistance to CAR T cell therapy

Compared to TCRs, CARs have poorer recruitment of proximal signaling molecules and antigen (Ag) sensitivity. To improve CAR T cell responses in low-Ag settings, Rotiroti et al. demonstrated that membr...

A pan-immunotherapy signature to predict intratumoral CD8+ T cell expansions

Takahashi et al. established a multi-site murine tumor model system for temporal tracking of CD8+ T cell phenotypes and clonal dynamics, identifying a “precursor exhausted” PD-1+Ly108+ population as a...

Neoadjuvant immunotherapy in mismatch-repair-proficient colon cancers

Tan et al. reported clinical outcomes and translational analyses of patients with early-stage DNA mismatch repair-proficient colon cancer from the phase II NICHE trial. Out of 33 patients, 17 received...

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Previous Digests

CRATERs on the tumor cell surface are hubs for antitumor immunity

October 29, 2025

Cancer immunology studies are often performed using mouse models or tumor samples from patients, but these models do not provide ideal opportunities to study immune cells as they interact with endogenous tumors. To visualize tumor–immune interactions in situ, Ludin...

2025 marks a special milestone for ACIR

October 27, 2025

This year, 2025, marks a special milestone: ACIR’s 10th anniversary! And we celebrate it with the announcement of a leadership transition. Dear Readers, The idea for ACIR was born in early 2015, just a few months after my son...

Lipid formulation replacement reroutes mRNA to the spleen for improved immune activation

October 22, 2025

The spleen has gained interest as a vaccination target, as high uptake of therapeutic mRNA cancer vaccines by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) is needed for therapeutic efficacy. However, current formulations of mRNA vaccines contain lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that accumulate in...

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About ACIR

ACIR's mission is to fast-track cancer immunotherapy research by helping researchers stay on top of the new literature in this fast-moving and multifaceted field, fostering their creativity and productivity in bringing us ever closer to curing this deadly disease.

Ute Burkhardt

Ed Fritsch

Lauren Hitchings

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Maartje Wouters

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Katherine J. Turner

Stan Wolf

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Shishir Pant

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Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy; Professor of PL&M; Director, Center for Cellular Immunotherapies; Director, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy; University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. (Supporter since 2025).

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