Research led by authors at MIT and co-authored by Dr. Greg Szeto and
1st year PhD student Michael Zhang was recently published in Nature
Medicine and featured by multiple news outlets. In this work, both arms
of the immune system (innate and adaptive) were simultaneously triggered
in a 4-pronged coordinated attack. The result was eradication of large
tumors in multiple mouse models, with survival >75% and protection
from tumor recurrence. This study is a first demonstration that the
endogenous immune response can successfully mount an attack against
large immunosuppressive tumors.
It
is also one of the first studies to identify a set of proteins that can
predict tumor size after therapy. Ongoing studies in the Szeto lab are
extending these findings into diverse tumor types and further refining
their predictive accuracy to one day predict therapeutic responses in
patients.
Image: T
cells — immune cells that are targeted to find and destroy a particular
antigen — are key to the adaptive immune response. In this image, the
top row shows few T cells in untreated mice, while the bottom rows show
many T cells produced after immunotherapy treatment. Courtesy of the
researchers
Read more--
Nature Medicine: Eradication of large established tumors in mice by combination immunotherapy that engages innate and adaptive immune responses