Home Research Roundups July 2026

July 2026.

ACGT July 2026 Research Roundup.

This month’s ACGT Research Roundup highlights two “world’s first” cell therapy approvals, investigations involving an exciting new CAR T-cell target in brain cancer, strategies for creating CAR T cells more quickly, and a bevy of oncolytic virus approaches, among other breakthroughs!

Latest ACGT-Funded Research Impact

Turning a Tumor’s Growth Signal into a Self-Destruct Switch

Michael Z. Lin, MD, PhD (Stanford University) and colleagues engineered a cancer-killing virus that switches on only inside tumor cells, leaving healthy tissue alone. Many cancers, including HER2-positive ovarian cancer, are driven by an overactive growth signal called ErbB. To exploit this frequent aberration, the team rewired that signal, so it triggers their modified virus—known as ErbB-OSV—to copy itself and destroy the cell, meaning the virus is designed to multiply in tumors but remain dormant elsewhere. In mice with advanced ovarian cancer, pairing the virus with standard chemotherapy more than doubled the survival benefit of chemotherapy alone, and the virus alone was enough to cure early-stage disease in most cases. This research was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and highlighted in BioWorld and OncoBriefs.

How a Common Mutation Leaves Brain Cancer Open to Attack

E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) and colleagues found that a common mutation in aggressive brain tumors may render them unusually vulnerable to a herpes-based oncolytic virus. The mutation, called IDH1-R132H, does two things that work in the therapy’s favor. First, the mutation causes tumor cells to express more copies of the receptor that the herpes virus uses to enter cells. Second, it quiets the cells’ antiviral defenses, allowing the virus to replicate and destroy the cancer cells more freely. In mouse models of this brain cancer, the modified virus sparked a strong immune attack on the tumor and pairing it with a second drug that releases the TIGIT brake on immune cells further improved its effectiveness. The findings point to IDH1-R132H as a marker that could help identify which patients are most likely to benefit from this kind of virotherapy. This research was published in Nature Communications.

ACGT Research Fellows in the News

In a landmark study published in Nature, Sheila Singh, MD, PhD (King’s College London and McMaster University) and colleagues demonstrated that CAR T-cell therapy targeting GPNMB can eradicate brain tumors and provide long-term relief in mice across multiple models of brain cancer, including tumors derived from human patients. Interestingly, the team showed that the GPNMB-targeting CAR T cells eliminated two distinct populations of GPNMB-expressing cells within tumors: the brain cancer cells themselves and their myeloid co-conspirators that protect tumors. This research was published in Nature, featured by King’s College London, and highlighted by numerous news outlets, including the Daily Telegraph and The Independent. Dr. Singh was also interviewed for video segments by Newswise and CTV News.
Crystal Mackall, MD (Stanford University) and colleagues designed new CAR T cells that leverage “activation-induced release” to overcome the exhaustion that can hamper their activity after activation. This trick also enables them to precisely target other tumor-promoting actors in the vicinity of cancer cells. This research was published in Cell and highlighted by Stanford Medicine.
Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD (Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center) and colleagues developed CAR T cells targeting the MUC16 protein in patient-derived bladder cancer models and demonstrated the superiority of intravesical delivery over IV infusion. This research was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine and highlighted on OncoDaily.
Yvonne Chen, PhD (University of California, Los Angeles) and Laurie Adami, an ACGT Patient Advocate, were featured on a Fox News @ Night segment focusing on the impact of CAR T-cell therapy in treating cancer.
Noriyuki Kasahara, MD, PhD (University of California, San Francisco) and his co-founders at Koppra Bio, raised $9.1 million to pursue a novel engineered virus therapy for brain cancer. The funds will advance the company’s lead candidate, the oncolytic virus platform KB-516, into a first-in-human phase 1 trial to be conducted under China’s regulatory pathway. This announcement was covered by Endpoints News and Tech Times.
Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD (Columbia University), Carl H. June, MD (University of Pennsylvania), and Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute, were announced as the recipients of the 2026 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for their many groundbreaking contributions that have advanced the field of cell therapy in cancer.

Additional Work Led by ACGT Research Fellows

Koji Tamada, MD, PhD (Yamaguchi University) and colleagues highlighted a new, faster method to generate CAR T cells—called “Swift” CAR T cells—without an extended expansion phase. This research was published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.
Stephen Gottschalk, MD (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital) and colleagues, characterized the distinct T-cell populations in two common forms of leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia. Additionally, Dr. Gottschalk and a colleague shared insights into how the peculiarities of cell division influence the fates and therapeutic potential of CAR T cells. This research and commentary were published in Blood Advances and Nature Immunology, respectively.
Carl H. June, MD (University of Pennsylvania) and colleagues used an artificial intelligence-driven approach to independently identify GPNMB as a promising CAR T-cell target and validated its value in mouse models of leukemia, melanoma, and colorectal cancer. Additionally, Dr. June and colleagues developed mesothelin-targeting CAR T cells that effectively eliminated ovarian and pancreatic cancers. These two research studies were published in Cell and Frontiers of Immunology, respectively.
Douglas Mahoney, PhD (University of Calgary) and colleagues demonstrated the potential power of GPNMB-targeting CAR T cells for sarcoma. This research was published in Nature Cancer.
Kah-Whye Peng, PhD (Mayo Clinic) and colleagues shared preliminary results from a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating the VV1 oncolytic virus therapy in combination with checkpoint immunotherapy in patients with advanced solid cancers. Additionally, Dr. Peng and colleagues uncovered a mechanism by which oncolytic virus therapy can lead to systemic toxicity, as well as a strategy to reverse it. These two research studies were published in Cancer Research Communications and Molecular Therapy Oncology, respectively
Alexander Marson, MD, PhD (University of California, San Francisco), and colleagues discovered a variety of factors in human T cells that can either increase or decrease their susceptibility to infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This research was published in Cell.
Joseph A. Fraietta, PhD (University of Pennsylvania) and colleagues conducted an overview of immune-related adverse events in multiple myeloma patients who were treated with BCMA-targeting CAR T cells across various clinical trials. This work was published in Molecular Therapy Oncology.
Marco Gallo, PhD (Baylor College of Medicine) and colleagues dissected how current models interpret signatures associated with low oxygen availability in neuro-oncology studies and the implications. This short communication was published in Neoplasia.

Industry and Clinical Updates

Satricabtagene autoleucel (Satri-cel) was approved as the world’s first CAR T-cell therapy for solid tumors, following an announcement from China’s National Medical Products Administration. This approval covers refractory cancers of the stomach and gastroesophageal junction that express claudin18.2 and do not express HER2.
Tregzi was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the world’s first regulatory T cell-based therapy for cancer patients. This novel therapy is designed to prevent graft-versus-host disease and was approved for patients with blood malignancies, including leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from donors.
Exciting preliminary clinical data were unveiled regarding LB2501, a new therapy that generates dual-targeting CAR T cells inside the body in patients with relapsed and refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Preliminary results shared from the phase 1 ReMIND clinical trial testing multi-targeting CAR T cells—against the tumor-associated antigens WT1, PRAME, and surviving—in children with central nervous system cancers.
First pancreatic cancer patients treated in a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating ANOC-001, an engineered T-cell receptor therapy targeting tumors harboring the KRAS G12V mutation.