An “innate immunity + local immune activation” combination strategy: Systemic IFN-I and topical TLR7/8-based antitumor immunotherapy strategy
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Dec-2025 08:11 ET (15-Dec-2025 13:11 GMT/UTC)
Immunotherapy has shown tremendous potential in cancer treatment but remains ineffective for most patients. Researchers continue to develop new therapeutic strategies to enhance both the safety and treatment efficacy of immunotherapy. A commentary authored by the group of Bo Xiao and Chenghui Wang at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China introduces a new strategy combining systemic type I interferons (IFN-I) with topical Toll-like receptor 7/8 (TLR7/8) agonists to enhance the antitumor effect of PD-1 antibodies. The commentary, titled “Systemic IFN-I Synergizes with Topical TLR7/8 Agonists to Suppress Metastatic Tumors,” was published in Research.
This study assessed the diagnostic accuracy and fairness of multimodal large language models (ChatGPT-4 and LLaVA) in identifying skin diseases across various demographic groups. Analysis of approximately 10,000 medical images showed that while these AI models generally outperform traditional approaches, biases in performance related to sex and age were evident, particularly with LLaVA showing clear sex-related disparities.
Researchers advocate for attention to demographic fairness in AI-driven healthcare solutions. Further studies are planned to include additional demographic factors such as skin tone, aiming to enhance AI usability and reliability across diverse patient populations.
This study presents a machine learning approach to estimate the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) shortwave radiation flux from Deep Space Climate Observatory / Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (DSCOVR/EPIC) satellite observations.
Recently, a collaborative research team led by Professor Yong-Qiang Li of Shandong University and Professor Yanmei Yang of Shandong Normal University systematically investigated the physical binding mechanisms between enzymes and the photosensitizer chlorin e6 (Ce6), and proposed a catalytically enhanced strategy for photodynamic therapy (PDT). The study demonstrated that the extent of positively charged regions on the enzyme surface could be served as a reliable indicator for evaluating and predicting the enzyme’s binding affinity to Ce6. Based on this criterion, the authors further developed catalase-Ce6 nanoconjugates (CAT-Ce6 NCs) exhibiting excellent stability and potent photodynamic antibacterial activity. The CAT-Ce6 NCs effectively remodeled hypoxic pathological microenvironments and eradicated bacteria, thereby promoting the advancement of catalysis-augmented PDT of bacterial infections. The aforementioned study, titled "Deciphering the Physical Binding Mechanism of Enzyme–Photosensitizer Facilitates Catalysis-Augmented Photodynamic Therapy," was published in the journal Research.