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Letter from the Editor| JITC  Editor Picks|SITC 40^th Anniversary Special Series|Popular Articles 

Letter from the Editor

June is Cancer Immunotherapy Month—a time to celebrate the remarkable progress our field has achieved and recommit ourselves to the work that remains. As we celebrate this month, I am delighted to share JITC’s new 2025 Impact Factor of 11.7—an outstanding achievement that shows the continued strength, influence, and growth of our journal, and places JITC among the top 5% of all immunology journals and the top 9% of all oncology journals. It also serves as a reminder of the critical role that rigorous, high-quality scientific publishing plays in advancing cancer research and patient care. As we reflect on the advances that have transformed cancer care and anticipate the next generation of scientific breakthroughs, I am reminded of the strength of our global immunotherapy community and our shared commitment to improving patient outcomes.

Earlier this month at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, I joined JITC Clinical Cancer Immunotherapy Section Editor Paolo Antonio Ascierto, MD, to host a “Meet the Editor” session at the SITC exhibit booth. It was a rewarding opportunity to engage with researchers at every career stage, discuss the critical role of scientific publishing, and reinforce the importance of collaboration in advancing cancer immunotherapy.

(Left to right – Alanna Kaplan MD, PhD; Elshad Hasanov MD, PhD; Vignesh Elangovan BS; Michael T. Lotze, MD, FAIO; Karim Vermaelen MD, PhD; and Irina Krykbaeva MD, PhD. Photo Courtesy of Valerie Ward, SITC). 

ASCO also provided valuable scientific insights and educational opportunities that continue to shape the future of our field. In the “ASCO Highlights” section below, I share SITC’s key takeaways from this year’s meeting, along with related JITC articles that further explore emerging areas of discovery.

June Article Spotlight – Commentaries, Editorials, and Hypotheses 
In recognition of Cancer Immunotherapy Month, we are spotlighting the JITC Commentary and Editorials Section, led by Section Editor Christian Capitini, MD. This section provides expert perspectives on significant developments in the field, addresses critical challenges, and fosters discussion around emerging concepts and innovative hypotheses. This month’s featured commentaries place recent research findings in the broader context of cancer immunobiology, helping readers better understand their scientific and clinical significance. I encourage you to explore these articles, along with the many outstanding papers published in JITC this month, and to consider them as valuable resources for your own research and scholarship.

In addition to these select commentaries published this past month, don’t miss an outstanding collection of recent commentaries commemorating SITC’s 40^th Anniversary: I-O Progress and Potential. Luminaries in immuno-oncology provided their insights into current achievements in various areas of the field while also sharing their personal, forward-looking vision of where the field is moving in the upcoming decades.

Regards, 

Michael T. Lotze, MD, FAIO
Editor-in-Chief
 Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 

JITC Editor Picks

PSCA CAR Vδ1 T cells: a safer off-the-shelf CAR T therapy for pancreatic cancer?

From the Authors – Abstract:

• Pancreatic cancer remains among the deadliest malignancies, with a 5-year survival of ~13%. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy offers hope, but conventional αβ T cells can trigger severe toxicities, including graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) when used for allogeneic therapy. By contrast, γδ T cells recognize tumors without MHCmajor histocompatibility complex restriction and are unlikely to cause GvHD, making them attractive candidates for “off-the-shelf” immunotherapy. Li et al engineered the Vδ1 subset of γδ T cells with a CAR targeting prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) and compared these cells to CAR-engineered Vδ2 γδ and conventional αβ T cells in preclinical pancreatic cancer models. All three groups showed comparable tumor killing efficacy, but the CAR Vδ1 T cells induced none of the GvHD or systemic toxicity seen with CAR αβ T cells. They also displayed lower exhaustion than CAR Vδ2 cells, suggesting potential for greater persistence. Vδ1 CAR T cells could be expanded robustly ex vivo and remained highly potent even after cryopreservation, a key “off-the-shelf” requirement. These findings position CAR Vδ1 T cells as a safer alternative to traditional CAR T cells. Future rigorous clinical evaluation will be needed to confirm superior safety and efficacy of this promising approach in patients.

Humoral contributions to checkpoint blockade therapy  

From the Authors  – Abstract:

• Checkpoint blockade immunotherapy has changed the landscape of cancer treatment for many types of malignancies, but it still does not work for all individuals and for all tumor types. Much work over the past decade has been dedicated to discerning what underlies the heterogeneity in patient responses. While the underlying mechanism for checkpoint inhibition is mostly thought to be through facilitating better cellular immunity, Ring and colleagues recently began to broadly categorize the autoantibody landscape in immune checkpoint blockade (ICB)-treated individuals. They used the rapid extracellular antigen profiling technique to survey circulating antibody profiles from 374 patients and 131 healthy controls sampled longitudinally. The authors discovered that autoantibodies were more commonly found in patients with cancer treated with ICB compared with healthy controls, and that the types and levels of autoantibodies remained largely stable over time. While the population-level responses were quite diverse, there were some specific autoantigens that were targeted by the immune systems of multiple individuals. Of these, individuals who possessed autoantibodies against one or more proteins in the type-I interferon, interleukin (IL)-6 or IL-17 pathways or to tumor necrosis factor-like ligand 1A (TL1A) tended to have better responses to therapy, especially if the antibodies were neutralizing against their respective targets. Individuals who generated antibodies that blocked proteins within the bone morphogenesis pathway, conversely, exhibited a worse response to checkpoint inhibition. Overall, using this autoantibody-wide association study approach, the authors were able to characterize the extracellular and secreted autoreactome in detail, and to identify promising new therapeutic targets and areas of future investigation for patients taking ICB therapies.

Local immunotherapy in the neoadjuvant treatment of cancer: optimizing efficacy while limiting toxicity?

From the Authors – Abstract:

• Accumulating evidence from randomized phase 3 trials in multiple tumor types supports the application of neoadjuvant or perioperative immunotherapy to significantly enhance clinical benefit in patients with resectable solid tumors. While systemic immunotherapy in this setting can be very effective, immune-related toxicity and resistance remain important challenges. Local administration of immune checkpoint blockade and/or other immune modulatory agents at lower doses offers a promising alternative strategy. Access to the proximal tumor microenvironment and tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs) minimizes systemic exposure and potentially mitigates toxicity without compromising efficacy. Local neoadjuvant immunotherapy may enable more potent immune priming and activation within preserved TDLN, potentially reducing both local and distant recurrence rates and improving clinical outcomes. The availability of post-treatment resection specimens allows for the subsequent in-depth analysis of induced immune responses and co-evolving resistance mechanisms. Notwithstanding these potential advantages, challenges remain, such as lack of consensus on preferred delivery techniques, optimal (combinatorial) agents, dosing, and timing of administration. Carefully designed clinical trials, randomized against systemic administration, are needed to address these issues, establish durable clinical benefit, and guide broader implementation of locally administered neoadjuvant immunotherapy.

First-in-human use of recombinant IL-7 to potentiate antigen-specific T cell therapy: a single patient case study

From the Authors – Abstract:

• Maintenance of anticancer immunity without compromising immune tolerance remains a challenge. Immunosuppressive regulatory T cells (Tregs) are the guardians of immune tolerance that underpin prevention of autoimmune responses. Tregs express checkpoint molecules that suppress autoreactive immune cells from being activated by endogenous (self) proteins. However, expression of these checkpoints on immune cells contributes to cancer cell evasion from the immune system while inhibition of checkpoint signaling in cancer immunotherapy induces autoimmune-related adverse events. Two instructive cytokines that regulate the opposing functions of immunosuppressive Tregs and anticancer responses mediated by cytotoxic natural killer cells include the interleukins, IL-2 and IL-12. An overview based on published data is described herein to highlight how manipulation of these cytokines may have dual action in oncologic and autoimmune models. This raises the possibility of exploiting mechanisms in cancer immunotherapy that could promote anticancer immunity while still maintaining immune tolerance. Given the role of peptides in protein-related interactions, it remains important in rational drug design to remain vigilant for potentially beneficial effects that could benefit both cancer surveillance and immune tolerance.