Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as Keytruda and Opdivo work by unleashing the immune system’s T cells to attack tumor cells. Their introduction a decade ago marked a major advance in cancer therapy, but only 10% to 30% of treated patients experience long-term improvement. In a paper published online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe findings that could bolster the effectiveness of immune-checkpoint therapy. Rather than rally T cells against cancer, the Einstein research team used different human immune cells known as natural killer (NK) cells—with dramatic results.

“We believe the novel immunotherapy we’ve developed has great potential to move into clinical trials involving various types of cancer,” said study leader Xingxing Zang, M.Med., Ph.D., Professor of microbiology  at Einstein and a member of the Cancer Therapeutics Program of the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center.

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