Circulation Research spotlights a profile of Matthias Nahrendorf, MD PhD and his research. (pdf)

CSB work is highlighted in Nature Reviews Cardiology. (pdf)

Seonki Hong (Poster of Prestige), Chen-Han Huang (Poster of Merit), and Ashley Fenn (Poster of Distinction) received awards at 2016 MGH ORCD Research Fellows Poster Celebration. Congratulations!

Fil Swirski, PhD has been selected as a 2016 MGH Research Scholar. Congratulations, Fil!

An immune cell that protects against cancer. Macrophages are mostly viewed as tumor-promoting cells. They can infiltrate solid tumors in high numbers, and their presence at the tumor site is often associated with decreased patient survival. However, much less is known about macrophages located outside the tumor stroma. Mikael Pittet and colleagues now show that a population of lymph node macrophages, called subcapsular sinus (SCS) macrophages, unexpectedly protects against melanoma. The study was published in Science on March 17, 2016 and is available for download.

A recipe to improve cancer immunotherapy. Novel immune checkpoint blockade therapies can be extraordinarily effective but may benefit only the minority of patients whose tumors are pre-infiltrated by antitumor immune cells called CD8+ T cells. In a study published in Immunity, the Pittet lab at MGH Center for Systems Biology reports that rationally selected immunogenic chemotherapy can convert tumor microenvironments lacking T cells into ones displaying antitumor T cell immunity. This process makes unresponsive tumors sensitive to immune checkpoint blockade therapies and consequently raises hope to feasibly expand the proportion of human cancers responding to these therapies.