About the Cover
Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease that is refractory to most available treatment strategies. Nab-paclitaxel is a form of paclitaxel, a chemotherapeutic drug used against solid tumors, that is now a first-line treatment for pancreatic cancer. Nab-paclitaxel is actually a nanoparticle comprising paclitaxel bound to albumin. Cullis and colleagues examined the interaction of these particles with tumor-associated macrophages and found that the particles are ingested via macropinocytosis. This ingestion process influences the differentiation of the macrophages so that the number of antitumor macrophages is much increased. The fluorescence micrograph shows macrophages (blue nuclei) that have macropinocytosed nab-paclitaxel nanoparticles (green). Read more in the article by Cullis et al. in this issue of Cancer Immunology Research, starting on page 182. Micrograph is from Figure 1, and artwork is by Lewis Long.