Letter From the Editor - June

Hello JITC Readers,

This edition of the JITC Digest is extra special because June is Cancer Immunotherapy Month™. As JITC readers, you are already aware of the transformational impact of immunotherapy and we welcome you to take advantage of the myriad educational growth and professional development opportunities for clinicians, researchers, and patients offered by SITC during June.

 

June has already been a banner month for immunotherapy, especially for our clinical colleagues. Those of you who attended the American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting just a few weeks ago—or who followed JITC’s Twitter commentary—likely saw the panoply of oral abstracts, posters, plenary addresses, and education sessions all featuring impressive data showing benefit for a variety of immunotherapy approaches across numerous disease settings. If the results of RELATIVITY have you seeking more information on LAG3 or other targets, be sure to revisit JITC’s Immune Checkpoints Beyond PD-1 Series.

 

Of course, the clinical successes of immunotherapy stemmed from years of basic and translational research, more of which is needed to bring about the next generation of therapeutic agents to overcome resistance and expand the population of patients that may benefit. This month’s original research offers insight into mechanisms of resistance to a variety of immunotherapeutic modalities, with intriguing implications for future development.

 

Francisco J Cueto et al uncover paradoxical inhibition of Flt3L-mediated tumor clearance mediated by a surface receptor involved in cross-priming. Improved tumor control in mice with a novel, extended half-life recombinant IL-15 is demonstrated by Takahiro Miyazaki and colleagues. For the first time, hypoxia is shown to mediate anti-PD-1 resistance in head and neck cancer by Dan P Zandberg et al. Finally, Zhiliang Bai and colleagues identify functional differences in CAR T cells generated from healthy donors and patients.

 

After reading this month’s JITC, continue to celebrate Cancer Immunotherapy Month™ by supporting our sister journals in the immunotherapy space. You can find links to other specialized publications aiming to advance the field forward in this month’s special highlights section.

 

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire April 2021 JITC Digest, please click here. 

Letter From the Editor - May

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of the JITC Digest. Astute readers have likely noticed that this month’s digest is debuting a new feature. In addition to the usual programming—exciting new publications in JITC—the digest will now also highlight popular papers from the journal archive.

 

This month, we have four original research articles that offer novel insight on one of our field’s most challenging obstacles: resistance to therapy. Addressing immunotherapy resistance is a priority for the field as a whole, and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer is spearheading efforts toward developing uniform clinical definitions of resistance as well as support the basic and translational research in order to understand and overcome the mechanistic underpinnings.

 

Barbara Manzanares-Martin and colleagues reveal a surprising association between genomic heterozygosity for the killer-cell immunoglobin-like receptor and overcoming KRAS mutation-mediated resistance to cetuximab.

 

Disease that develops resistance to anti-PD-1 therapies is often highly challenging to treat, but results from two early phase trials in this month’s digest may offer patients new options. Brendan D Curti et al show safety and promising efficacy with the combination of a novel galectin antagonist and pembrolizumab for melanoma and head and neck cancer. Intratumoral injection of the oncolytic poliovirus PVSRIPO led to complete regressions even in uninjected lesions in some patients with melanoma in a phase I trial reported by Georgia M Beasley et al.

 

Finally, Michael W Knitz and colleagues provide deep mechanistic characterization of the interplay between dendritic cells and regulatory T cells that causes head and neck cancers to remain stubbornly immunologically cold after radioimmunotherapy.

 

Be sure to browse this month’s highlight of classic papers as well as the new original research—perhaps perspective from the archives may help spark novel insight into a new finding or vice versa.

 

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire April 2021 JITC Digest, please click here. 

Letter from the Editor- April

Dear JITC Readers,

It is a pleasure to welcome you to this month’s JITC digest. The original research articles highlighted in this edition are fantastic examples of mechanistic insight interwoven with new strategies for intervention and vice versa—the seamless reverse translational cycle that is central to the immunotherapy field.

 

Novel targets for immunotherapy are characterized by Aiqin Gao and colleagues, who show that blocking ILT4 relieves T cell immunosenescence via ERK-dependent metabolic perturbations, as well as François Anna et al, who take aim at HLA-G with the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells against the dual function tumor-specific antigen and immune checkpoint.

 

Esther Redin and colleagues demonstrate that inhibition of the SRC-family kinase YES1 with the approved leukemia drug dasatinib decreases CD4+ Treg conversion and enhances the efficacy of PD-1 blockade in non-small cell lung cancer.

 

Another strategy to augment the anti-tumor effects of PD-1 inhibition is identified by Yoke Seng Lee et al, who establish a link between conventional type 1 dendritic cell counts and responses to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma as well as in a novel humanized mouse model.

Finally, Gino M Dettorre and colleagues validate a readily available index of hyperinflammation incorporating lymphopenia and hypoalbuminemia that predicts outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with cancer—research that hints at interventions to prevent severe disease and nicely complements recently published articles in JITC’s ongoing COVID-19 and Cancer Immunotherapy Review Series.

 

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire April 2021 JITC Digest, please click here. 

Letter From the Editor- March

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to this month’s edition of the JITC digest. For many of our American and European readers, March marks the one-year anniversary of the first local shelter-in-place orders and travel restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Although everyday life is still far from the pre-pandemic normal in many places, it seems as though the news has been increasingly hopeful day-by-day, especially as the pace of vaccination continues to accelerate.

 

We in the immunotherapy community can share in some of the pride in the outstanding success of the RNA-based COVID vaccines—as JITC readers are well aware, the platform was originally developed for anti-tumor therapy. Additional intersections between cancer immunotherapy and SARS-CoV-2 will be explored in JITC’s new COVID-19 and Cancer Immunotherapy Review Series.

 

RNA vaccines are but one of many examples of innovations that originated in the immunotherapy field with far-reaching implications. Our discipline excels at developing new platforms, and there is no shortage of interesting technologies to be found in this month’s original research articles. As an example, be sure to read about the use of virtual clinical trials to optimize dosing schedules for combination oncolytic virus therapy in an intriguing computational biology paper by Adrienne L. Jenner and colleagues.

 

We have a wealth of biomarkers papers this month, all of which not only describe novel observations, but also rigorously provide mechanistic insight into tumor immunobiology. In one such report, Jiakai Hou et al elegantly leverage published data sets combined with a well-designed CRISPR/Cas9 drop-out screen to identify and categorize tumor-intrinsic resistance mechanisms to immune elimination.

 

Retrospective analyses also yield new insights in a paper by SIyuan Dai and colleagues, who identified in silico and validated in vitro a role for CD8+ T cell-secreted CXCL13 in immunoevasion by clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

 

A different chemokine’s receptor, CCR8 is revealed to be a specific marker of intratumoral regulatory T cells and a viable immunotherapeutic target that yields tumor control without autoimmunity in murine models in a manuscript by Helena Van Damme et al.

 

Finally, Karen Slattery and colleagues identify a novel, targetable and prognostic autocrine regulatory circuit involving TGF beta that leads to systemic natural killer cell dysfunction in patients with breast cancer.

 

Although many of us have been physically distanced from each other for much longer than we’d like, it is clear that our community of JITC readers, authors, editors, and reviewers is as strong and vibrant as ever, and I look toward the future with optimism.

 

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire March 2021 JITC Digest, please click here. 

Letter From the Editor- December

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to the final JITC digest of 2020. You are likely reading this email within a few days of the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year. Although 2020 has been a highly challenging year with some dark and difficult times, it is reassuring to know that each passing day will come with a little more light. 

 

Although the term has by now become cliché, we are indeed living in unprecedented times. Yet looking back upon 2020, some bright spots emerge from the dark and challenging circumstances in which we have been living. The society’s various task forces and working groups published several impactful papers, one of which, by Brian Gastman and colleagues on the SITC Surgery Committee, appears in this month’s issue. SITC also successfully carried out its first ever all-virtual annual meeting, and it was an amazing opportunity to reconnect with colleagues from all over and experience the very best in immunotherapy research (even if our interactions were through videochat windows). 

 

Additionally, JITC increased its impact factor to 10.252 in 2020, making it the highest ranked fully open access immunology journal and in the top 7 percent of all journals published in the oncology and immunology categories. I’m so grateful to you, our JITC readers, for your constant support of the journal, as well as the tireless efforts of all of our editors and peer reviewers. Thank you all so much for helping to make JITC the field-leading journal that it is today.

 

The articles in this month’s JITC digest are exemplary of why the journal continues on an upwards trajectory of success. Not only are the highlighted studies well-designed and tightly controlled, but the results forecast important trends for the future of the immunotherapy field. 

 

Two unique angles on therapeutic vaccination are provided by Juliane Schuhmacher et al and Iuliia Efimova et al, demonstrating that synthetic long peptides and cells dying an iron-dependent death, respectively, may offer advantages for the development of anti-tumor immunity. 

 

Combination regimens including multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitors and checkpoint blockade are the subject of reports by Javier Martin-Broto et al and Kohei Shigeta et al, further establishing the importance of angiogenesis in immune exclusion and demonstrating that combination strategies could expand the number of tumor types susceptible to PD-(L)1-targeting therapies. 

 

Finally, Diana Canals Hernaez and colleagues provide proof of concept that antibodies specific to tumor-restricted glycans can be developed and that they can specifically kill cancer cells when conjugated to toxic payloads.
 
I hope you enjoy this month’s JITC digest, and I wish a sincere and heartfelt happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year!

 

Best,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire September 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter From the Editor- November 2020

Dear JITC Readers,

I hope you enjoy this latest edition of the JITC digest. You are receiving this email after the conclusion of SITC’s 35th anniversary Annual Meeting and Pre-Conference Programs, this year re-imagined as an entirely virtual experience. Although we sorely missed the opportunity to interact with our colleagues in person, the virtual platform was an amazing opportunity for participants from around the world to experience the latest and greatest in immunotherapy research. Hopefully, you had an opportunity to stop by the virtual JITC booth during the meeting!

Included within the highlights of the meeting was the presentation of the annual JITC best paper awards. This year, the manuscripts honored were, “CRISPR-Cas9 disruption of PD-1 enhances activity of universal EGFRvIII CAR T cells in a preclinical model of human glioblastoma” and “Mechanisms regulating PD-L1 expression on tumor and immune cells.” Of course, the award selection was a difficult decision this year, as JITC is blessed with an abundance of excellent papers, which is truly a “problem” that the journal is lucky to have as we continue to grow and expand.

Among the many important manuscripts published this month is “The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) clinical practice guideline on immunotherapy for the treatment of acute leukemia,” which is sure to be a valuable resource for the hematology-oncology community.

The rest of the papers in this month’s JITC digest touch on some hot topic areas in immunotherapy—myeloid cells, metabolism and novel targets, among others—inching the field forward to the overall goal of identifying and expanding the population of patients who may benefit, while revealing new insights into the mechanisms of actions of some familiar agents.

Hongfei Wang et al look beyond the traditional T cell-centered view for immuno-oncology and developed a novel myeloid-targeting agent that showed robust synergy with radiation in mouse models.

Blood-based biomarkers for response to checkpoint blockade have long been elusive, but Alissa Keegan and colleagues make use of ultrasensitive single-molecule array technology to identify a familiar cytokine—IL-6—as a potential factor with predictive value for survival benefit after PD-1 blockade.

New nuance in the T cell physiology associated with checkpoint blockade efficacy is provided by Hannah S Newton et al, who perform elegant electrophysiology experiments to identify distinct differences in voltage-gated ion channel activity, calcium flux and chemotaxis in blood- and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes among patients with pembrolizumab-responsive and non-responsive head and neck cancers.

Potential utility for PI3Kdelta inhibition beyond hematologic malignancies and in solid tumors is demonstrated by Sarah Nicol Lauder and colleagues—intriguingly, they show that combination with anti-LAG3 therapy leads to even more pronounced effects, highlighting the promise of combinatorial approaches for novel immunotherapy targets.

Finally, do not miss an exceptional review by Maria Zagorulya, Ellen Duong and Stefani Spranger, discussing the implications of tissue-specific variability in myeloid cells on the efficacy of checkpoint blockade therapy. 

Warm regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire September 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter From the Editor -October 2020

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of the JITC digest. For many of our readers, especially in the United States, October is associated with Halloween—the seasonal mood hearkens back to the earliest days of immunotherapy, when many considered the concept of immunological control of tumors to be the stuff of “witchcraft.”

Now, of course, thanks to tireless efforts by clinicians and researchers as well as participation by patients in clinical trials, our understanding of tumor immunology has advanced by leaps and bounds. Concepts once thought to be spooky and mysterious such as immune checkpoints are now generally accepted as common knowledge. Every advance, however, also brings new areas of inquiry, and JITC will continue to publish the leading research in our field. The JITC’s corrected Impact Factor just released by Clarivate Analytics of 10.252 attests to the growing influence of the journal in a field that has taken center stage in oncology and immunology.

We also look forward to SITC’s annual meeting and pre-conference program, this year reimagined as an entirely virtual experience. The virtual meeting will be a one of a kind opportunity to hear from luminaries in our field as well as view presentations on the latest research. Find out more about registration here.

The original research articles featured in this month’s digest highlight several exciting emerging areas in immunotherapy. Elham Beyranvand Nejad and colleagues add a new angle into the important topic of mechanisms of immunotherapy resistance, with an in-depth characterization of the importance of the myeloid cellular component in the tumor microenvironment for preventing recurrence.

Efficient targeting of regulatory T cells in the tumor microenvironment has had limited success to date, but Francesca Zammarchi et al provide promising pre-clinical evidence that a CD25-directed antibody-drug conjugate may efficiently deplete immunosuppressive cells and strongly synergize with checkpoint inhibitors, allowing for robust disease control.

In an outside-of-the-box approach to improve yields for chimeric antigen receptor T cell manufacturing, Andrea Schmidts and colleagues developed artificial antigen presenting cells that improve over conventional bead-based reagents for T cell activation in several aspects. Of note, Schmidts et al modified the artificial antigen-presenting cells to disrupt expression of the lentiviral binding receptor and avoid “vector sink” during transduction using CRISPR-Cas9—the technology honored with the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Immunotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting is an important and ongoing area of research. Although the trial of nivolumab and ipilimumab prior to surgery for resectable non-small cell lung cancer reported by Joshua E Reuss and colleagues was prematurely terminated due to toxicity, the findings underscore the importance of future research, especially on biomarkers to predict response to treatment.

Finally, in addition to the excellent original research in this month’s digest, it’s a pleasure to spotlight a review from the recently completed series on immune checkpoints beyond PD-1. If you have not read these outstanding reviews, be sure to browse the entire collection, in addition to the overview of TIGIT in immunotherapy highlighted in this month’s digest.

 

Warm regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire September 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter From the Editor - September

Dear JITC Readers,

It is a pleasure to welcome you to this edition of the JITC digest. A new academic year is getting underway for many of our readers, and regardless of the “new normal” imposed by COVID-19, the journal continues to publish groundbreaking research from across the immunotherapy field.

 

The articles spotlighted in this month’s digest exemplify how the immunotherapy field excels at bringing a new perspective to processes or therapies that might be considered familiar—thus advancing our discipline in novel and important new directions.

 

John C. Flickinger Jr., and colleagues creatively overcome the obstacle inherent in many cancer vaccine approaches of pre-existing host immunity to the adenoviral backbone by engineering a new chimeric vector.

 

By taking a new look at a familiar cytokine, Tal Kan et al provide evidence that IL-31 may induce anti-tumor immunity in breast cancer.

 

New immune response biomarkers that could help identify patients with melanoma who may benefit from combination radiotherapy and CTLA-4 blockade are described by Celine Boutros and colleagues. Additionally, evidence for safety and efficacy with retreatment with anti-PD-L1 therapy after discontinuation for reasons other than toxicity or progression is provided by Siddharth Sheth et al.

 

Although the results were negative for a first-in-human trial for a first-in-class, orally administered, selective dual inhibitor of IDO1 and TDO2, reported by Aung Naing and colleagues, the findings could set the stage for future studies of rational combinations of therapies targeting tryptophan metabolism and other immunotherapy agents.

 

Finally, a first-of-its-kind study by Pedro Barata et al demonstrates the feasibility of using a commercially available cell-free DNA assay to identify patients with advanced prostate cancer and microsatellite instability-high tumors who may benefit from pembrolizumab.

 

To further your reading this month, be sure to browse JITC’s Reading List, with an intriguing selection of papers drawn from the viral immunology world, selected by Dr. Howard Kaufman.

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire September 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter From the Editor - August 2020

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to this latest edition of the JITC digest. The papers highlighted this month offer exciting perspectives on the current state of the immunotherapy field as well as promising future directions for research.

 

Clinical oncologists can find a comprehensive overview of approved and emerging immunotherapies for multiple myeloma, including some of the new CAR T cell therapies currently in development, in the newest clinical practice guideline from SITC, by Nina Shah et al.

 

Promising clinical data on the use of checkpoint blockade for prostate cancer is provided in an original research article by Julie N Graff et al. The paper is the first to demonstrate durable responses with PD-1 inhibition in a subset of prostate cancer patients.

 

The identification of biomarkers to predict response to immunotherapy remains an important and ongoing area of study for our field. Two papers in this month’s digest highlight the key role that tumor metabolism plays in determining outcomes after immunotherapy, offering potential biomarkers for future study.

 

David Chardin and colleagues identify tumor metabolic parameters as measured by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) that are prognostic and predictive for outcomes after anti-PD-1 therapy for non-small cell lung cancer. Another immunometabolic biomarker is identified by Fangming Liu et al, who identify an association between FABP5-positive tumor infiltrating T cells and improved overall and recurrence-free survival in hepatocellular carcinoma.

 

New immunotherapeutic targets is another high-priority topic for research, and Marta Trüb and colleagues demonstrate promising in vitro anti-tumor properties with a novel fibroblast activation protein (FAP)-targeted 4-1BB agonist (FAP-4-1BBL).

 

Finally, do not miss an excellent review by Christopher A Chuckran et al of Neuropilin-1, which acts as a receptor ‘hub’ for sorting signals from diverse ligands to both promote regulatory T cell (Treg) stability in the tumor microenvironment and inhibit anti-tumor CD8+ T cell responses—the latest in the Immune Checkpoints Beyond PD-1 review series.

 

As always, you can also further your reading with highlights from other journals in JITC’s Reading List, selected this month by Claudia M Palena, PhD, of the NCI.

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire August 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter From the Editor - July 2020

Dear JITC Readers,

I am thrilled to share exciting news with you in this latest edition of the JITC digest. This year, JITC increased its impact factor to 9.913, making the journal the highest ranked fully open access immunology journal and in the top 8 percent of all journals in the oncology and immunology categories. The ranking not only reflects the increasing prominence of the cancer immunotherapy field as a whole, but also the outstanding efforts of our JITC editors and expert reviewers, who work tirelessly to ensure that the journal publishes only the top-tier submissions month after month. With a sharp increase in manuscripts submitted to JITC during the last two years, we remain committed to a high standard of timely peer review and to facilitating the publishing of high quality content for our readership.

This month is no exception, with a total of 63 articles publishing in JITC during June. As always, the research spans a wide diversity of topics representing almost every step in the path from bench to bedside. The papers highlighted in this month’s digest include basic research, translational science and human trials.

On the basic science side, Lorena Carmona Rodríguez and colleagues uncover a novel, cell context-specific role for WNT signaling in controlling access to tumors by infiltrating lymphocytes. In another study investigating changes to the tumor microenvironment, Simon P Keam et al demonstrate through NanoString immune gene expression profiling, digital spatial profiling, and high-throughput immune cell multiplex immunohistochemistry analysis on samples from human patients, that high dose-rate brachytherapy converts immunologically cold tumors to hot.

On the therapeutics side, Matteo Libero Baroni et al provide evidence that CD123-directed chimeric antigen receptor T cells are profoundly myeloablative, opening the door to a potential bridge to transplant therapy for acute myeloid leukemia. Victoria A Brentvile and colleagues develop a novel tumor vaccine based on a mixture of three citrullinated peptides that takes advantage of a toll-like receptor agonist adjuvant to dramatically reduce the effective therapeutic dose. Additionally, Adi Reches and colleagues identify a potentially promising new target for checkpoint inhibition in Nectin4, which is a TIGIT ligand with highly restricted expression to tumor cells.

Finally, David S Hong and colleagues demonstrate significant increases in tumor-infiltrating CD3+ and CD8+ T cells in patients with advanced solid tumors after treatment with a small-molecule antagonist of the E-type prostanoid receptor 4 in a first-in-human clinical trial.

I hope you enjoy these articles, and all of the excellent papers published this month in JITC. Also, be sure to peruse this month’s JITC's Reading List for a selection of papers of interest from other journals.

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire July 2020 JITC Digest, please click here. 

JITC Letter from the Editor - June 2020

Dear JITC Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of the JITC digest. As we move into the first months of the summer, cancer research programs are cautiously beginning to re-open in cities around the world while at the same time the streets are full of thousands of people protesting against racial injustice. In these tumultuous times, JITC is proud to add to the voices of all those across the globe in strong support of justice and equality, and against racism of any kind. 

We hope that all our JITC readers are staying safe as shelter in place orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic slowly lift and we reaffirm our commitment to publishing the best of immunotherapy research through these tumultuous and uncharted times. 

In this issue we are excited to share an excellent review, two perspectives from SITC and four original research articles, two of which describe important new biomarker approaches for predicting and monitoring therapeutic response and two of which develop strategies to enhance anti-tumor immunity. 

John P Lynes and colleagues provide a timely update on strategies for the identification of predictive immunotherapy biomarkers in the highly heterogeneous central nervous system malignancy glioblastoma along with an overview of challenges for the field in central nervous system disease in, "Biomarkers for immunotherapy for treatment of glioblastoma."

In, "Endogenous TLR2 ligand embedded in the catalytic region of human cysteinyl-tRNA synthetase 1," Seongmin Cho et al. identify a unique TLR agonist embedded within the catalytic region of a human tRNA synthetase enzyme that significantly improved survival when administered with checkpoint inhibitors in mouse models without causing significant systemic toxicity. 

Victor H Engelhard and colleagues developed, performed pre-clinical characterization and evaluated safety and immunogenicity of a novel immunotherapeutic vaccine comprising HLA-restricted phosphorylated peptides in, "MHC-restricted phosphopeptide antigens: preclinical validation and first-in-humans clinical trial in participants with high-risk melanoma." 

On the biomarkers side, Thomas LaSalle and colleagues used a novel PET agent that non-invasively quantifies granzyme B release to measure immune cell activation in tumors during checkpoint inhibitor therapies. Additionally, in an impressive pan-tumor analysis, Jessica Roelands et al. demonstrate that cancer-specific oncogenic gene expression programs may modulate the predictive power of favorable intratumoral immune responses. Don't miss the papers, "Granzyme B PET imaging of immune-mediated tumor killing as a tool for understanding immunotherapy response" and "Oncogenic states dictate the prognostic and predictive connotations of intratumoral immune response." 

JITC also is proud to publish two outstanding papers from SITC, "The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer perspective on regulation of interleukin-6 signaling in COVID-19-related systemic inflammatory response" by Fernanda I Arnaldez et al. and "The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer statement on best practices for multiplex immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) staining and validation" by Janis M Taube and colleagues. The former provides an overview of immune-modulatory therapies that may be of use for COVID-19 and the latter helps set standards to ensure outputs are robust and comparable across laboratories and platforms. 

Finally, it is with a heavy heart that I share the passing of our colleague Beatrix Kotlan. Among her many amazing contributions to the immunotherapy field, Beatrix was a founding Associate Editor who served six years on the JITC editorial board. She was also a dedicated, enthusiastic reviewer and a tireless advocate for lower-income countries to have access to the tools and knowledge necessary to advance the field. Our thoughts are with her family.

Best regards,

Pedro J. Romero, MD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer

To view the entire June 2020 JITC Digest, please click here.