Science

Jul 23, 2025, 08:20

Miguel Bronchud: Preventing Tumor Adaptation to Immune Therapy

Miguel Bronchud, Co-Founder and Advisory Board at Regenerative Medicine Solutions, shared a post on LinkedIn about recent paper by Erica L. Braverman et al., published in ASCO Educational Book.

“Inhibitors of macrophage PI3Kγ, antibodies targeting the checkpoint LAG3, and inhibitors of Jak1 can reverse resistance to immune cancer therapy and show promise in preventing resistance- but these new treatments are still in development and their precise indications & therapeutic roles remain to be proven (in terms of objective efficacy and cost-effectiveness, before they become standard treatments).

In spite of continued advances and considerable research efforts, there are still many unknowns in subjects of great relevance to immunity and cancer- for example, regarding the concepts of immune escape (and related immune editing mechanisms) during carcinogenesis , and cancer progression .

The medical literature on cancer immune therapies is vast and for those who have an interest (and free time to read it) I recommend this recent comprehensive review article published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2025):

In 2018, almost a decade ago, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to James Allison and Tasuko Honjo for identification of novel strategies to promote antitumor immunity. These investigators made fundamental observations that proteins expressed on the surface of chronically stimulated T cells, PD-1 and CTLA-4, suppressed T-cell functions, thereby rendering T cells unable to fight or “exhausted”.

Antibody inhibitors of PD-1 and CTLA-4, nivolumab (nivo)/pembrolizumab and ipilimumab, respectively (& many others since their approval) have shown remarkable success as cancer therapeutics and are approved widely for treatment of patients with cancer.

A 10-year study of patients with melanoma treated with nivo plus ipilimumab versus either antibody alone recently showed that 43% of dual antibody-treated patients with melanoma survived a median of 10 years. Some patients appear to have been cured.”

Title: One Step Ahead: Preventing Tumor Adaptation to Immune Therapy

Authors: Erica L. Braverman, Giuliana P. Mognol, Andy J. Minn, Dario A.A. Vignali, Judith A. Varner

Read The Full Article at ASCO Educational Book.

Miguel Bronchud: Preventing Tumor Adaptation to Immune Therapy