Cancer Immunotherapy - The Target is Precisely on The Cancer and Also Not.

Cancer Immunotherapy - The Target is Precisely on The Cancer and Also Not. Ann Acad Med Singapore. 2018 Sep;47(9):381-387 Authors: Koo SL, Wang WW, Toh HC Abstract In recent years, the impressive number of cancer immunotherapy drugs approved has been unprecedented-building on over a century of understanding on how the immune system combats cancer, and how cancer evades it. Leading the charge are the immune checkpoint inhibitor monoclonal antibodies, and adoptive cell therapy with chimeric- antigen-receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy. These breakthrough therapies have led to improved survival in patients with many advanced cancers. Some of the clinical outcomes have been striking, and may even be potentially curative in some terminal cancer patients. While immune checkpoint inhibitors work by blocking regulatory immune checkpoint signals between cancer and the immune cells to awaken an effective anticancer immunity, CAR-T cell therapy targets specific molecules on cancer cells. Tumour antigens as cancer targets take many forms and may not necessarily be proteins related to known functional cellular mechanisms. The convergence of cutting edge omics, bioinformatics, protein synthesis, immunobiology and immunotherapy have led to novel, potentially highly effective cancer targeting against neoantigens, hence reviving the quest for anticancer vaccines. Early clinical trials of neoantigen vaccines have provided proof-of-principle efficacy, especi...
Source: Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Ann Acad Med Singapore Source Type: research