Letter From the Editor - December

Hello JITC Readers,

Welcome to the final JITC digest of 2021. This past year has not been without its challenges, but the immunotherapy field has also seen tremendous advancement. Checkpoint inhibitors are moving into the standard of care for an ever increasing number of tumor types as well as in earlier stages of disease and the number of approved CAR T cell products has more than doubled in the past year alone.
 

The journal has also progressed by leaps and bounds this year, and the more than three-point bump in JITC’s impact factor in 2021 reflects the high quality of research found in every issue. As the journal continues to grow and excel, I am excited to announce that James L. Gulley MD, PhD, FACP, has been appointed to the role of Deputy Editor-in-Chief. Be sure to read this month’s special feature for a biography of JITC’s new second-in-command and the extensive experience he brings to the role.

For the final digest of the year, we are highlighting four exemplary original research articles that offer innovative approaches for modulation of the tumor microenvironment.

Intratumoral immunotherapy is the focus of Yu-Chao Zhu and colleagues and Maite Alvarez et al. The first group demonstrate feasibility of intratumoral administration of an attenuated strain of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii leading to tumor rejection and immune memory. The second manuscript shows synergistic activity of a poly I:C derivative and a STING agonist even when injected into separate lesions.

New mechanistic insight into mechanisms of immune evasion are also offered. Inhibition of dipeptidyl peptidase is identified as a strategy to enhance efficacy of anti-PD-1 against the immunologically cold tumor pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma by Allison A. Fitzgerald et al. A new soluble immune checkpoint, chitinase 3-like-1, is revealed as an inhibitor of natural killer (NK) cell antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity by Abbass Darwich and colleagues.

With well-wishes for the holidays and optimism for what 2022 will bring.

 

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. 

Meet JITC’s New Deputy Editor-in-Chief: James L. Gulley, MD, PhD, FACP

Given the continuing growth of JITC, the position of Deputy Editor-in-Chief has been added to JITC’s leadership to support the JITC Editor-in-Chief in leading the strategic and editorial direction of the journal, serving as second-in-command of the Editorial Board. JITC is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. James L. Gulley as JITC’s inaugural Deputy Editor-in-Chief. 

Dr. Gulley has served as a Section Editor for JITC’s Clinical/Translational Cancer Immunotherapy section since 2017. Dr. Gulley has been instrumental in preparing for, responding to, and managing the growth of what is JITC’s largest section over the past four years. With his leadership and strategic insights, the section welcomed the addition of a second Section Editor, was the first to introduce Deputy Editor roles at a section level, and expanded its Associate Editor representation. He also received the 2021 Pedro J. Romero Service to JITC Award in November 2021. 

After graduating from Loma Linda University in California with a PhD in microbiology in 1994 and an MD in 1995, he completed a dissertation on tumor immunology as part of the eight-year MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program. He then completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Emory University in 1998, followed by a Medical Oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). 

Dr. Gulley serves within the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) of the National Cancer Institute as Chief of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch (GMB), the Director of the Medical Oncology Service (CCR), Deputy Director of the CCR, and as Head of the Immunotherapy Section within the GMB, as well as serving on many national and NIH boards and committees. He has been instrumental in the clinical development of multiple immunotherapeutic agents and has led numerous first-in-human immunotherapy studies through phase III clinical trials. Dr. Gulley was the coordinating PI of an international trial of avelumab that led to regulatory approval. He was also the PI of the first-in-human international study of a first-in-class agent, bintrafusp alfa, which targets PD-L1 and TGF-beta. Additionally, Dr. Gulley leads a number of rationally designed, cutting edge combination immunotherapy studies, and has served as an investigator on about 200 clinical trials, while authoring over 350 scientific papers or chapters which have been cited over 20,000 times. He has made hundreds of scientific presentations at universities and national and international meetings.

For his outstanding research, in addition to garnering 10 NCI or NIH Director’s Awards, Dr. Gulley has received numerous accolades, including the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest award bestowed by the US President on investigators early in their careers. Dr. Gulley was also awarded the 2018 Hubert H. Humphrey Award for Service to America for contributing to the health, safety, and well-being of the nation by helping to get FDA approval for avelumab for Merkel cell carcinoma and urothelial carcinoma.