Abstract CN04-02: High priority immunotherapy agents in development to treat and prevent cancer

The key insight driving the development of effective cancer immunotherapy is that all cancers have mutated proteins, and that many of these mutated proteins are recognizable as foreign by the patient's own T cells. Cancers evolve and become more and more aggressive by continuously accumulating additional mutations. As cancers evolve, T cells co-evolve the capacity to recognize and kill the cancer cells by recognition of the additional mutated proteins.Unfortunately, cancer cells also co-evolve mechanisms to escape T cell. Many cancer cell escape mechanisms are similar or identical to escape mechanisms exploited by infectious disease pathogens. Equally important for cancer cell escape from immune attack is that the immune system itself is programed to dampen down and limit ongoing T-cell responses. In order to protect the body from excessive T-cell responses and autoimmunity, multiple overlapping and redundant feedback mechanisms limit the size -- and thus effectiveness -- of immune responses, including attacks against cancer.Fortunately, basic scientists have identified many of the negative influences and have invented and constructed immunotherapeutic agents that counteract the natural/intrinsic programed dampening of T-cell actions that otherwise would allow the subsequent escape of cancer cells from immune attack by T-cells. Accordingly, the rules of cancer therapy are rapidly evolving.The most important agents are the check-point inhibitors, in particular anti-PD1 and ant...
Source: Cancer Prevention Research - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Tags: Other Topics in Chemoprevention and Biological Therapies: Oral Presentations - Invited Abstracts Source Type: research