Human cancer prognosis related to newly identified immune cell
The research is published online October 16, 2014 in the journal Cancer Cell. Molecules associated with these cells, newly identified by the UCSF researchers, could be the focus of new immunotherapies that are more precisely targeted than current immunotherapies now in clinical trials, said Matthew Krummel, PhD, professor of pathology at UCSF and the leader of the study. In fact, the UCSF researchers concluded that the presence of these cells may be the reason current immunotherapies aimed at boosting T lymphocyte responses have any effectiveness whatsoever. Krummel’s lab team depleted the population of these already rare cells in mice and demonstrated that the immune system was then unable to control tumors, even when the mice were given immunotherapeutic treatments…