Howard Kaufman, MD, FACS, Ankyra Therapeutics and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, talks on recent advances in predictive biomarkers for oncolytic virus therapy. In contrast to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy, where several biomarkers such as PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden (TMB) have been correlated with treatment response, there are currently no biomarkers to identify patients most likely to benefit from oncolytic virus therapy. Recently, studies have suggested that low JAK1 and JAK2 expression may be associated with a better response to oncolytic viruses. Dr Kaufman underlines the importance of including biomarker studies in clinical studies for oncolytic viruses to identify novel predictive biomarkers. This interview took place during the 36th Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
