Hoffmann, Friederike
Zarbl, Romina
Niebel, Dennis
Sirokay, Judith
Fröhlich, Anne
Posch, Christian
Holderried, Tobias A. W.
Brossart, Peter
Saavedra, Gonzalo
Kuster, Pia
Strieth, Sebastian
Gielen, Gerrit H.
Ring, Sandra S.
Dietrich, Jörn
Pietsch, Torsten
Flatz, Lukas
Kristiansen, Glen
Landsberg, Jennifer
Dietrich, Dimo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9794-7927
Funding for this research was provided by:
Swiss National Science Foundation (PP00P3_157448)
Mildred Scheel Foundation (NA)
DFG Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation (EXC 1023)
Article History
Received: 13 March 2020
Accepted: 10 June 2020
First Online: 26 June 2020
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: Data generation by the TCGA Research Network and Liu et al. was performed in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as previously described [CitationRef removed, CitationRef removed]. Patient inclusion and sample analyses at the University Hospital Bonn were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University Hospital Bonn (vote 187/16). Patient inclusion and sample analyses at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen, the Spital Grabs, the Spital Wil, and Spital Flawil were approved by EKOS (Ethikkommission Ostschweiz, Switzerland). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
: Not applicable
: DD owns patents on methylation of immune checkpoint genes (including PD-L2) as predictive and prognostic biomarkers. The patents are licensed to Qiagen GmbH (Hilden, Germany), and DD receives royalty payments. The University Hospital Bonn (PI Dimo Dietrich) received research funding from Qiagen. DD is a consultant for AJ Innuscreen GmbH (Berlin, Germany), a 100% daughter company of Analytik Jena AG (Jena, Germany), and receives royalties from product sales (innuCONVERT kits). AF, CP, DN, FH, and JS have received speakers’ honoraria or travel expense reimbursements from the following companies: Celgene, Roche, BMS, Pierre Fabre, Novartis, and MSD. JL and CP are consultant / advisory board members of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Novartis, and Roche. LF reported grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Hookipa Pharma, Krebsliga Schweiz, and Novartis Foundation as well as an advisory role for Novartis, Sanofi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed by the other authors.