On November 4, 2026 Asgard Therapeutics, a privately held biotech company pioneering in vivo direct cell reprogramming for cancer immunotherapy, reported the publication of a landmark study in the journal Immunity demonstrating that its proprietary cell reprogramming platform can reliably induce the formation of mature immunogenic tertiary lymphoid structures (imgTLSs) directly within tumors and across multiple tumor types.
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imgTLSs are strongly associated with improved responses to immunotherapy and better survival across many cancers. However, previous approaches have struggled to reliably induce the formation of imgTLS across diverse tumor microenvironments (TMEs).
Filipe Pereira, Co-founder and Head of Innovation at Asgard, and lead author of the paper, said: "These findings provide strong evidence that, using Asgard’s in vivo cell reprogramming technology alone, we can reliably induce mature immunogenic TLSs across multiple tumor types. Recent work has implicated natural cDC1s in the formation and maintenance of TLS, and our study shows that the cDC1-like cells generated by in vivo reprogramming recapitulate these functions, supporting the fidelity of our mechanism of action."
Cristiana Pires, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Asgard Therapeutics, said: "Demonstrating reliable induction of mature, immunogenic TLSs is something many companies and institutions have been trying to achieve. Thus, these new results are an important validation of the potential of our platform to turn tumors into sites of productive anti-tumor immunity. Together with the data we are presenting at SITC (Free SITC Whitepaper), the findings further support our efforts to advance our lead asset AT-108 toward the clinic next year, where we believe it could have a transformative impact on cancer patients."
The study, titled "Inducing immunogenic lymphoid niches across cancers by tumor-to-dendritic cell reprogramming", demonstrated that reprogramming tumor cells into cDC1-like cells using Asgard’s proprietary in vivo technology induced imgTLS formation across murine models of seven tumor types – melanoma, colon, bladder, breast, lung, pancreatic and glioblastoma, including both subcutaneous and orthotopic models. This breadth of activity across multiple cancer types, all with different mutational burdens and TMEs, strongly supports a tumor-agnostic effect.
Induced immunogenic niches contained CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and B cells, with BCL6+ germinal centers driving class-switching and tumor-reactive antibodies. Moreover, B cells were required for both imgTLS formation and tumor control, linking the induced TME remodeling to anti-tumor function. Importantly, the same DC-LAMP+ cDC1-nucleated architecture was detected in human tumors, suggesting that cDC1 reprogramming engages a TLS program conserved in human tumors and supporting the clinical translation of in situ reprogramming to induce functional TLS in patients.
Furthermore, inducing imgTLSs by cell reprogramming led to dramatic increases in complete response rates, compared to anti-PD1 immune checkpoint blockade monotherapy, across all models tested, including 100% tumor regressions in colorectal and breast cancer models.
Researchers also found a statistically significant positive correlation between the presence of larger imgTLSs and better long-term tumor control, supporting the potential use of imgTLSs as a clinical response biomarker in oncology.
The study, a collaboration between Asgard Therapeutics, Lund University, Shanghai Cancer Centre and the University of Coimbra, can be found here: View Source
The mechanistic findings reported in Immunity are complemented by preclinical studies with Asgard’s lead candidate, AT-108. Following intratumoral administration, AT-108 induces dose-dependent immune remodeling, characterized by increased cytotoxic and activated T-cell populations, reduced immunosuppressive macrophages, and transcriptional signatures of B-cell and immunoglobulin-associated programs. Importantly, TME remodeling was reflected systemically in the blood, with measurable dose-dependent changes in circulating immune cells and transcriptional signatures, providing accessible pharmacodynamic biomarkers of AT-108 activity.
These AT-108 biomarker data will be presented in a poster at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper)’s (SITC) (Free SITC Whitepaper) 41st Annual Meeting, taking place 4-8 November 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Details of the poster presentation are as follows:
Title: Preclinical characterization of local and systemic pharmacodynamic biomarkers of AT-108, a first-in-class in situ tumor-to-dendritic cell reprogramming agent
Abstract Number: 1055
Presenter: Emma Leire, Asgard Therapeutics
Date: Friday 6 November 2026
Location: Exhibition Halls 4-6
Times: 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM MT; Poster lunch session 12:15 PM – 1:45 PM MT; Poster reception: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM MT
(Press release, Asgard Therapeutics, NOV 4, 2026, View Source [SID1234674158])