IL-2 based cancer immunotherapies: an evolving paradigm.

Discovered over 4 decades ago in the supernatants of activated T cells, interleukin-2 (IL-2) is a potent pleiotropic cytokine involved in the regulation of immune responses. It is required for effector T cell expansion and differentiation as well as for peripheral tolerance induced by regulatory T cells. High-dose IL-2 treatment was the first FDA-approved immunotherapy for renal cell carcinoma and melanoma, achieving single agent complete and durable responses, albeit only in a small proportion of patients.

The Evolution of Single-Cell Analysis and Utility in Drug Development.

This review provides a brief history of the advances of cellular analysis tools focusing on instrumentation, detection probes, and data analysis tools. The interplay of technological advancement and a deeper understanding of cellular biology are emphasized. The relevance of this topic to drug development is that the evaluation of cellular biomarkers has become a critical component of the development strategy for novel immune therapies, cell therapies, gene therapies, antiviral therapies, and vaccines.

An analysis of variability in the manufacturing of dexosomes: implications for development of an autologous therapy.

Dexosomes are nanometer-size vesicles released by dendritic-cells, possessing much of the cellular machinery required to stimulate an immune response (i.e. MHC Class I and II).

Exosomes as a tumor vaccine: enhancing potency through direct loading of antigenic peptides.

Exosomes secreted by dendritic cells (DCs) contain MHC-I, MHC-II, and other accessory molecules required for antigen presentation to T cells. Previous studies have shown that exosome MHC-I "indirectly" loaded by adding peptides to DC cultures are immunogenic. However, analysis of peptide binding was not performed to link T-cell-stimulating activity with the amount of MHC-I/peptide complexes on the exosomes.