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Immune cells track hard-to-target brain tumours

Clinical trials reveal that personalized vaccines can boost immune-cell responses to brain tumours that don’t usually respond to immunotherapy. The findings also point to how to improve such treatments.
  1. Neeha Zaidi

    1. Neeha Zaidi is at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA.

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  2. Elizabeth M. Jaffee

    1. Elizabeth M. Jaffee is at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA.

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Instructing the immune system to recognize and kill tumours, an approach termed cancer immunotherapy, has transformed the clinical treatment of certain types of malignancy. Prominent among these therapies are immune-checkpoint inhibitors, which block the action of proteins that dampen immune-cell responses against tumours. For example, antibodies can be used to interfere with the inhibitory protein PD-1, which is present on T cells, a type of immune cell that attacks tumours. Immune-checkpoint inhibitors have been most successfully used to treat cancers, such as melanomas, that are well infiltrated by T cells and have a large number of genetic mutations1,2. A subset of these mutations might generate neoantigens — altered protein sequences that are uniquely produced in cancer cells and are recognized as foreign by the immune system3.

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Nature 565, 170-171 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07728-9

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Competing Interests

E.M.J. serves on the scientific advisory boards of four immunotherapy companies: CSTONE, Genocea, Adaptive Biotech and DragonFly. E.M.J. receives grant money from Aduro Biotech, Hertix and Bristol-Myers Squibb and has the potential to receive royalties on a vaccine licensed to Aduro Biotech. Also, E.M.J. is the president of the American Association for Cancer Research and serves as the chairperson of the National Cancer Advisory Board.

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