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Recent progress indicates a considerably improved mechanistic understanding of CAR T cell biology and delivers important insights into why some patients achieve durable remissions and others do not. In addition, although most success has been achieved in the context of CAR T cells targeted to B cell tumor antigens, namely CD19 and BCMA, we are seeing promising clinical trial outcomes for solid tumor malignancies.
From the first engineered T cell receptor medicine to regulatory snubs over China-only data, 2022 was another action-packed year for the oncology drug development community.
Tumors with DNA mismatch repair or proofreading deficiencies, either at the germinal or somatic level, usually present with high tumor mutational burden and often show striking responses to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy. Ongoing translational and clinical investigations of those tumor subsets provide avenues for further improvement in patient outcomes.
Lisa M. Coussens is Professor and Chair of the Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology department, and Deputy Director of Basic and Translational Research in the Knight Cancer Institute, at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland Oregon, USA. She is also President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) for 2022–2023. Nature Cancer caught up with her to hear her thoughts on the past year and what’s in store for 2023.
The Biden administration’s cancer-focused initiatives were reinvigorated this year with the relaunch of the Cancer Moonshot and with ARPA-H plans taking shape. But after a bumpy year of leadership turnover and missteps in funding proposals, how these efforts will play out remains to be seen.
Deeper insights into context-specific cancer cell states and the mechanisms that underlie the phenotypic plasticity of different cancer types are key to tackling tumor formation, therapy resistance and recurrence after therapy.
Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a challenging disease with few approved treatments. Rapidly expanding insights into the pathogenesis of this cancer and clinical trials are now suggesting a variety of targeted and immune-oncology agents with the potential to address unmet clinical needs.
The true impact of a paper, a researcher’s work or a journal’s value cannot be captured by any one metric but requires a more nuanced approach that combines quantitative and qualitative measures.
The US Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade will affect patients with cancer and cancer care providers across the United States. In this time of uncertainty, it is imperative to protect health rights and evidence-based care.
The advent of immunotherapy has revolutionized the cancer field, but it is not without its challenges. In this issue, we launch our Series on Cancer Immunotherapy presenting commissioned Reviews and opinion pieces on the latest advances and efforts to expand the palette of immunotherapies and their clinical translation.
As guidelines, therapies and literature on cancer variants expand, the lack of consensus variant interpretations impedes clinical applications. CIViC is a public-domain, crowd-sourced and adaptable knowledgebase of evidence for the clinical interpretation of variants in cancer, designed to reduce barriers to knowledge sharing and alleviate the variant-interpretation bottleneck.
Nature Cancer and the Nature journals are raising the standards on reporting on sex and gender in research. Starting this June, authors will be prompted to provide details on how sex and gender were considered in study design.
The advent of EGFR inhibitors has been a game changer in clinical oncology. However, differing sensitivity to different mutations, resistance and adverse effects continue to impede decisive treatment of mutant EGFR–driven cancers, which highlights the need for advanced and innovative EGFR-targeting approaches.
A deeper understanding of the specific tumor context and microenvironment, the underlying tumor immunology, and barriers to effective treatment, including therapy resistance and adverse effects, is essential to the development of improved immunotherapy modalities and regimens.
Robust and faithful preclinical models are essential for understanding the underlying biology of human cancer and for devising new and improved therapies.
A deeper understanding of the molecular and cellular underpinnings of metastatic disease and a renewed focus on metastasis-targeting therapeutic approaches raise hopes for improved clinical translation.
