TIME in motion: How response takes shape

A longitudinal pan-cancer single-cell atlas assembled by Lin et al. demonstrates that the trajectory of immune-state remodeling during checkpoint inhibitor therapy predicts treatment response more accurately than the baseline composition of the tumor immune microenvironment. The study challenges the prevailing paradigm of treating the tumor microenvironment as a static snapshot, showing that dynamic changes carry greater prognostic value. This Cancer Cell commentary highlights the shift toward time-resolved biomarker strategies for immunotherapy.