Immunomodulatory drugs: a promising clinical ally for cancer immunotherapy.

While immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs) have been authorised for treatment of haematological cancers for over two decades, the appreciation of their ability to stimulate antitumour T cell and natural killer (NK) cell responses is relatively recent. Clinical trial data increasingly show that targeted immunotherapies, such as antibodies, T cells, and vaccines, improve outcomes when delivered in combination with the IMiD derivatives lenalidomide or pomalidomide. Here, we review these clinical data to highlight the relevance of IMiDs in combinatorial immunotherapy for both haematological and solid tumours.

Imaging the injured beating heart intravitally and the vasculoprotection afforded by haematopoietic stem cells.

Aims: Adequate microcirculatory perfusion, and not just opening of occluded arteries, is critical to salvage heart tissue following myocardial infarction. However, the degree of microvascular perfusion taking place is not known, limited primarily by an inability to directly image coronary microcirculation in a beating heart in vivo. Haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) offer a potential therapy but little is known about their homing dynamics at a cellular level and whether they protect coronary microvessels.