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HAEMATOLOGICAL CANCER

Myeloid immune-checkpoint inhibition enters the clinical stage

The first-in-human study of anti-CD47 antibodies blocking CD47–SIRPα interactions in combination with rituximab in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma shows encouraging clinical responses accompanied with mild levels of toxicity. Inhibition of the CD47–SIRPα interaction might provide a generic method of promoting the effects of antitumour antibodies in a variety of cancer types. This reveals, for the first time, an innate immune checkpoint as a bona fide target for therapy.

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Fig. 1: The CD47–SIRPα innate immune checkpoint.

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Acknowledgements

T.K.v.d.B. gratefully acknowledges research funding from the Dutch Cancer Society/KWF (#10300). T.V. gratefully acknowledges research funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG 124/9-1) and an intramural grant from the Christian-Albrechts-University.

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Correspondence to Timo K. van den Berg.

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T.K.v.d.B. is an inventor of a patent WO2009/131453, owned by Stichting Sanquin Bloedvoorziening, and is funded by a collaboration with Synthon Biopharmaceuticals BV. T.V. declares no competing interests.

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van den Berg, T.K., Valerius, T. Myeloid immune-checkpoint inhibition enters the clinical stage. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 16, 275–276 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-018-0155-3

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