Stem-cell–derived natural killer cells engineered in a similar way to CAR-T cells may pave the way to “off the shelf” cancer therapies that aren’t patient-specific.

The receptors, found in so-called elite controllers who don’t need medications to keep the virus in check, suggest a new path toward immunotherapy.

Drugs approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis block cytokines, the molecules responsible for severe side effects from the immunotherapy, and reduce symptoms in mice.

The immunotherapy eliminated a woman’s metastatic lesions and kept her disease-free for two years.

Merck’s Keytruda extended the lives of lung cancer patients by several months and appeared to stop the progression of advanced melanoma.  

Women with metastatic cancer who were treated with a checkpoint inhibitor had a smaller benefit than did men.

Pembrolizumab combined with chemotherapy nearly doubles survival rates and shrinks tumors in some individuals.

Genetic analyses uncover cellular hallmarks of bladder cancer tumors that don’t respond, but interfering with one of those characteristics in a mouse model causes tumors to shrink.  

A preliminary clinical trial finds that the personalized therapy improves survival rates and has no severe side-effects.