News and insights

Subscribe to our newsletter

Monoclonal antibodies that target cytotoxic T lymphocyte–associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) have shown great clinical benefit in patients with metastatic melanoma, generating a long-term response in 20 percent of treated cases. Last week , an international team that included researchers from the Ó³»­´«Ã½ released the largest comprehensive genomic study aimed at identifying the factors that determine response to CTLA-4 blockade therapy in melanoma patients.

Ó³»­´«Ã½ and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston will become the flagship data-production centers for a pioneering five-year project supported by the National Cancer Institute to characterize the genomic changes found in tumors. GCC funding comes via a research subcontract with Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., operations and technical support contractor for NCI’s Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.

Single-cell analysis

What: When bacteria invade the human body, immune cells rush to our defense, initiating a high-stakes tug-of-war in which macrophages – a type of immune cell that engulfs and digests pathogens and cellular debris – attempt to destroy the invaders while the bacteria look to survive and replicate. The outcomes of these cellular death matches vary from cell to cell: some macrophages engulf bacteria while others remain uninfected, and of those infected, some destroy their invaders while others allow bacteria to thrive.