Publications by authors named "P B Ross-Macdonald"
Article Synopsis
- Scientists are using a method called T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing to understand how the immune system responds to cancer.
- A new AI tool called DeepTCR helps predict how well patients will respond to cancer treatments by analyzing specific parts of the TCR sequences.
- The study finds that patients who don't respond to treatment have lots of T cells that should fight tumors, but these cells change a lot and don't work properly.
Article Synopsis
- - The CheckMate 214 trial showed that combining nivolumab and ipilimumab is more effective than sunitinib as a first-line treatment for advanced clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC), but there’s a need to figure out which patients will benefit most from this combo treatment.
- - Researchers explored various biomarkers, including proteins and genetic signatures, but found that those previously linked to other treatments did not predict survival outcomes for patients using nivolumab plus ipilimumab.
- - The study identified a link between tumor inflammation and better progression-free survival, suggesting that understanding the tumor's inflammatory environment could lead to improved strategies for personalized treatment in RCC patients.
Soluble PD-L1 as an early marker of progressive disease on nivolumab.
J Immunother Cancer
February 2022
Background: Soluble PD-L1 (sPD-L1) has been associated with worse prognosis in numerous solid tumors. We determined sPD-L1 levels before and during nivolumab treatment in two prospective clinical trials of metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and melanoma patients, and investigated its relationship to clinical factors, biomarkers, and outcome.
Methods: Using a new Single Molecule Array assay, serum sPD-L1 level were determined in RCC (CheckMate 009, n=91) and melanoma (CheckMate 038-Part 1, n=78) prior to, and at two time points on treatment.
Purpose: Combining anti-PD-1 + anti-CTLA-4 immune-checkpoint blockade (ICB) shows improved patient benefit, but it is associated with severe immune-related adverse events and exceedingly high cost. Therefore, there is a dire need to predict which patients respond to monotherapy and which require combination ICB treatment.
Experimental Design: In patient-derived melanoma xenografts (PDX), human tumor microenvironment (TME) cells were swiftly replaced by murine cells upon transplantation.
Background: Nivolumab is an immune checkpoint inhibitor targeting the programmed death-1 receptor that improves survival in a subset of patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). In contrast to other tumor types that respond to immunotherapy, factors such as programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) status and tumor mutational burden show limited predictive utility in ccRCC. To address this gap, we report here the first molecular characterization of nivolumab response using paired index lesions, before and during treatment of metastatic ccRCC.
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