Cancers arise in the body all the time. Most are nipped in the
bud by the immune response, not least by its T cells, which
detect telltale molecular markers—or antigens—on cancer cells
and destroy them before they grow into tumors. Cancer cells, for
their part, evolve constantly to evade such assassination. Those
that succeed become full-blown malignancies. Yet, given the
right sort of help, the immune system can destroy even these
entrenched tumors. Researchers led by Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, of
the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York describe one way in
which that might be achieved. Induction of tumoricidal function
in CD4+ T cells is associated with concomitant memory and
terminally differentiated phenotype relates how the cancer drug
cyclophosphamide (CTX) and OX86—an antibody that activates a
molecule named OX40 on T cells—were combined with a cutting-edge
therapy known as adoptive T cell transfer to eradicate advanced
melanoma tumors in mice