Asgard Therapeutics announces publication in Immunity demonstrating induction of cancer-fighting tertiary lymphoid structures across seven tumor types – and will present new AT-108 biomarker data at SITC 2026
Study in Immunity highlights Asgard's ability to generate potent immunogenic tertiary lymphoid structures (imgTLSs)
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- Study in Immunity highlights Asgard’s ability to generate potent immunogenic tertiary lymphoid structures (imgTLSs) solely by reprogramming tumor cells into antigen-presenting conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1s) directly within tumors.
- imgTLS formation seen across seven different tumor types from inflamed to non-T-cell inflamed and in immunosuppressed tumor microenvironments, demonstrating tumor-agnostic activity.
- Tumor-to-dendritic cell reprogramming led to dramatic increases in durable complete responses compared to anti-PD1 monotherapy, reaching 100% in murine colon and breast cancer models, and synergized with anti-PD1 in immune checkpoint blockade-resistant models.
- In addition, new data to be presented at SITC 2026 demonstrate tumor- and blood-based pharmacodynamic biomarkers of AT-108 activity, supporting their use to monitor treatment responses as the program advances toward clinical development.
LUND, Sweden, Nov. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Asgard Therapeutics, a privately held biotech company pioneering in vivo direct cell reprogramming for cancer immunotherapy, today announces 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.
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, 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: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2026.10.006
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’s (SITC) 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
For further information, please contact:
Asgard Therapeutics
Cristiana Pires, Co-founder and CEO
Email: cristiana.pires@asgardthx.com
Optimum Strategic Communications
Mary Clark | Stephen Adams | Vareen Outhonesack | Katherine Bliss
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8142 3740
Email: asgard@optimumcomms.com
Notes to Editors
About Asgard Therapeutics
Asgard Therapeutics is a privately held biotech company pioneering in vivo direct cell reprogramming for cancer immunotherapy. The company builds on ground-breaking and proprietary reprogramming technologies to develop gene therapy products designed to set in motion efficient and personalized immune responses. Asgard Therapeutics aims to establish a pipeline of off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies that trigger personalized anti-cancer immune responses for the benefit of cancer patients in need. Asgard is backed by Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Industrifonden, RV Invest and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. For more information, please visit: www.asgardthx.com
About AT-108
AT-108 is a first-in-class, off-the-shelf gene therapy that directly reprograms tumor-resident cells into a rare subset of dendritic cells critical for mounting efficient cytotoxic T cell responses, cDC1 cells (conventional dendritic cells type 1). Reprogramming forces the tumor cells to present their tumor antigens, ultimately leading to a personalized anti-tumor immune response. It is based on a replication-deficient adenoviral vector that delivers three proprietary reprogramming factors into tumor cells, rewiring their gene expression signatures and thus “programming” them to become antigen-presenting cDC1-like cells.
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