To better understand the immune system’s role in the fight against cancer,…researchers have searched thousands of tumors for genetic signatures that might serve as clues for whether immune cells had invaded tumors to stage a defense.
They found that for many cancers, higher levels of immune cell gene expression signatures inside tumors – which they believe is a sign of higher numbers of invading immune cells – was most often linked to better survival…[Researchers] showed that the signatures typically predict a better prognosis, and believe it may prove to be also possible to use a patient’s immune system’s gene expression characteristics to identify patients who will respond to certain immunotherapy drugs.
“Our hypothesis is that genomics interrogation of the immune system will help us develop clinically viable biomarkers for immunotherapy,” said Benjamin Vincent…”We wanted to see if we could use our genomics approach to gauge differences in the immune system’s response to tumors. We believe this study can lay the foundation for biomarker development in the future.
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