
A growing number of patients with cancer have benefited from drugs that help the immune system fight cancer, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. But most patients with cancers do not respond to these treatments.
To try to develop more effective immunotherapies, two groups of researchers, working independently, have developed a type of drug that simultaneously targets two proteins involved in suppressing the body’s immune response against tumors.
The researchers created the drugs by fusing a receptor for a protein called TGF-beta to a monoclonal antibody that targets a checkpoint protein, such as PD-L1 or CTLA-4. The result is a single hybrid molecule that blocks two pathways used by tumors to evade the immune system.
Source: NCI







