INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Letter from the Editor| JITC Editor Picks|New Special Series Myeloid Cells in Immuno-Oncology|JITC Meet-the-Editor Seession at JACI (Japan)|Popular Articles
Letter from the Editor
This month I would like to call attention to the recently completed “Myeloid Cells in Immuno-Oncology” special series now out in JITC. We also have several exciting series in the works which will be appearing over the next few months, including ones on AI in IO and neurobiology/immunobiology intersections.
Myeloid Cells in Cancer Immunology
Cancer in adults (but not children) most often arises in the setting of chronic inflammation with rare exception, most sarcomas and gliomas as two such exceptions. Following seven to ten years, nascent tumor cells arising in this setting associated with release of damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules such as HMGB1, DNA itself, and the S100 family of molecules, recruiting and activating myeloid cells including neutrophils and circulating monocytes. These in turn play critical roles in the wound-healing process as well as modulating tissue resident memory T cells, deposited gamma delta T cells, and recruited T and NK cells. The ‘yin and yang’ of these myeloid cells, playing most often an inhibitory response to lymphoid cells, has now been more interestingly broadened to consider not only their intrinsic diversity but also their potential anti-tumor roles as illustrated by some of the papers in the new JITC series. We have still to fully discern whether cancer most often arises with a chaotic big bang or as stepwise accumulation of mutations as originally considered. Efforts to align with the biology in our therapeutics, consider how to integrate vascular biology and access to immune effectors, and preempt tumor development with immune restitution remain to be integrated in our full understanding to enable immune interception/prevention of cancer.
30th Anniversary of the Japanese Association of Cancer Immunology (JACI 2026)
I will be having the chance to visit Japan and greet my former postdoctoral fellow, now at Riken, Dr. Shin-ichiro Fujii. He and I will be at the upcoming 30th Annual JACI Meeting later this month, scheduled for July 22–24, at the Kagawa International Conference Hall and Sunport Hall in Takamatsu, Japan.
Themed "Cancer vs. Immunity – Unraveling the Dynamics of the Battle," the event explores tumor microenvironments, antibody engineering, and immunotherapy resistance. For more specifics on the itinerary and abstracts, you can review the official schedule. In addition to a talk on tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, I will also be at a meet-the-editor session at the 30th JACI. See below for more details on this session.
Highlighted Manuscripts
Apropos the focus on neutrophil biology and inflammation, I have focused on those papers with a distinctly myeloid pitch. I encourage you to examine these and the others published in JITC this past month. The first article noted below from Taito Miyamoto and colleagues at the Wistar Institute proposes a rather intricate and interesting pathway in murine and human ovarian cancer studies that limits immune responses following chemotherapy. IL-1 provided by chemotherapy-stimulated tumor resident macrophages activates fibroblasts to release CXCL1, thereby recruiting neutrophils. Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) limit the effectiveness of T cells. Anna Rita Redavid and colleagues in Rome reviewed the extensive and largely descriptive but increasingly foundational studies focusing on NK cells interacting with tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). How to promote and align tissue-resident and inflammatory macrophages with effector NK (and T) cells coordinately represent areas of considerable foment and interest. Sanxiu He and colleagues from Chongqing further advance the importance of TAMs, focusing on the ability of lymphoma cells to release the DAMP HMGB2 through exosomes, which, interestingly, upregulates TAM E3 ubiquitin ligase TRIM65, promoting degradation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and thereby limiting antitumor responses.
A broad look at questions arising in myeloid biology in cancer was highlighted by a special series coordinated by Drs. Jennifer L. Guerriero, Dmitry I. Gabrilovich, and Judith A. Varner. They focus on burning questions in myeloid biology in cancer and introduce the series along with an editorial. See here and the special feature below for additional information on the complete series.
Regards,
Michael T. Lotze, MD, FAIO
Editor-in-Chief
Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer