Pathway to 'rejuvenating' immune cells to fight cancers and infections
(from left) Corresponding author Benjamin Youngblood, Ph.D., is with first author Hazem Ghoneim. Credit: Seth Dixon / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital immunologists have discovered how immune cells called T cells become "exhausted" -- unable to do their jobs of attacking invaders such as cancer cells or viruses. The finding is important because patients treated with immunotherapies against cancers are often non-responsive or experience a relapse of their disease, and it has been suggested that these challenges may be due to T cell exhaustion. In preclinical model systems studying viral infections or tumors, the researchers found that a chemotherapy drug already in use can reverse that exhaustion. The finding offers a new pathway to more powerful and durable immunotherapies , as well as immune therapies for viruses such as HIV that would marshal the immune system to kill the virus, researchers said. In a pa...