Redirecting cytomegalovirus immunity against pancreas cancer for immunotherapy
Our studies reveal that CMV-specific viral memory T cells can be re-directed to control a solid tumor normally refractory to immunotherapy via a simple, intravenous injection of T-cell peptide epitopes. This mutation-agnostic approach has significant potential for the development of "off-the-shelf" therapeutics by stimulating pre-existing antiviral memory, and it is widely applicable due to the high prevalence of CMV.
Authors
- Chris A. Benedict (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7816-656X)
- Tatiana Hurtado de Mendoza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3805-9254)
- P Salu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7948-6346)
- Catarina Maia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3546-1782)
- Evangeline Mose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6493-3860)
- A Lowy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6862-2434)
- Kevin Christian Montecillo Gulay (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9568-3590)
- Simon Brunel
- Siming Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3037-118X)
- Rémi Marrocco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1549-9663)
- Jay Patel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3823-6831)
- Eduardo Lucero-Meza
- Rithika Medari
- M Jaljuli
- Alexei Martsinkovskiy
Institutions
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
- Published
- 2026-02-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2025-012969
- Primary Topic
- Cytomegalovirus and herpesvirus research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Emory University
- National Institutes of Health
- University of California, San Diego