On November 17, 2021, OX2 Therapeutics, Inc., a privately-held Minneapolis-based company, announced encouraging early results from phase 1 human trials of its new cancer treatment. Developed to combat recurrent high-grade brain tumors, the treatment utilizes a newly-developed peptide inhibitor. "OX2 works to explore the therapeutic potential of the new immune checkpoint agent, CD200AR-L (CD200AR-ligand)," said Christopher Moertel, MD, and Michael Olin (photo), PhD, co-founders, with Sumant Dhawan, of OX2 Therapeutics. "Our team of doctors developed the new peptide inhibitor with high binding affinity to the immune activation receptor. This activates an anti-tumor response and simultaneously downregulates the inhibitory PD-1/PD-L1 and CTLA-4 and a major immune checkpoint CD200 inhibitory receptor."