Immunotherapy or biological therapy is the treatment of disease by activating or suppressing the immune system. Immunotherapies designed to elicit or amplify an immune response are classified as activation immunotherapies, while immunotherapies that reduce or suppress are classified as suppression immunotherapies. Immunotherapy is under preliminary research for its potential to treat various forms of cancer.
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops from the thin layer of tissue that covers many of the internal organs. The area most commonly affected is the lining of the lungs and chest wall. Less commonly the lining of the abdomen and rarely the sac surrounding the heart, or the sac surrounding the testis may be affected. Signs and symptoms of mesothelioma may include shortness of breath due to fluid around the lung, a swollen abdomen, chest wall pain, cough, feeling tired, and weight loss. These symptoms typically come on slowly.
A cancer vaccine, or oncovaccine, is a vaccine that either treats existing cancer or prevents development of cancer. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines or tumor antigen vaccines. Some of the vaccines are "autologous", being prepared from samples taken from the patient, and are specific to that patient.
Cancer immunotherapy (immuno-oncotherapy) is the stimulation of the immune system to treat cancer, improving the immune system's natural ability to fight the disease. It is an application of the fundamental research of cancer immunology (immuno-oncology) and a growing subspecialty of oncology.
Steven A. Rosenberg is an American cancer researcher and surgeon, chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He pioneered the development of immunotherapy that has resulted in the first effective immunotherapies and the development of gene therapy. He is the first researcher to successfully insert foreign genes into humans.
Ipilimumab, sold under the brand name Yervoy, is a monoclonal antibody medication that works to activate the immune system by targeting CTLA-4, a protein receptor that downregulates the immune system.
Mesothelin, also known as MSLN, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MSLN gene.
Cancer immunology (immuno-oncology) is an interdisciplinary branch of biology and a sub-discipline of immunology that is concerned with understanding the role of the immune system in the progression and development of cancer; the most well known application is cancer immunotherapy, which utilises the immune system as a treatment for cancer. Cancer immunosurveillance and immunoediting are based on protection against development of tumors in animal systems and (ii) identification of targets for immune recognition of human cancer.
Angus George Dalgleish FRCP FRCPath FMedSci is a professor of oncology at St George's, University of London, best known for his contributions to HIV/AIDS research. Dalgleish stood in 2015 for Parliament as a UKIP candidate.
Nicholas P. Restifo is an American immunologist, physician and educator in cancer immunotherapy. Until July 2019, he was a tenured senior investigator in the intramural National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda, Maryland. Nicholas was an executive vice president of research at Lyell based in San Francisco.
Gustav Gaudernack is a scientist working in the development of cancer vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. He has developed various strategies in immunological treatment of cancer. He is involved in several ongoing cellular and immuno-gene therapeutic clinical trials and his research group has put major efforts into the development of various T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies.
Molecular oncology is an interdisciplinary medical specialty at the interface of medicinal chemistry and oncology that refers to the investigation of the chemistry of cancer and tumors at the molecular scale. Also the development and application of molecularly targeted therapies.
Imugene Ltd is a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing a range of new and novel immunotherapies that seek to activate the immune system of cancer patients to treat and eradicate tumours. Imugene's unique platform technologies seeks to harness the body's immune system against tumours, potentially achieving a similar or greater effect than synthetically manufactured monoclonal antibody and other immunotherapies.
Ariel Cahill Hollinshead was an American cancer researcher and professor who spent her career at George Washington University. She was a pioneer in discovering tumor antigens and developing them as cancer vaccines.
Neoepitopes are a class of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) bounded peptides. They represent the antigenic determinants of neoantigens. Neoepitopes are recognized by the immune system as targets for T cells and can elicit immune response to cancer.
Individualized cancer immunotherapy, also referred to as individualized immuno-oncology, is a novel concept for therapeutic cancer vaccines that are truly personalized to a single individual.
Epitopoietic Research Corporation (ERC) is a Belgian Pharmaceutical company that is specialized in the development of ERC1671, a treatment for Glioblastoma multiforme, which is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. In 2019 ERC provided treatment under the US Federal Right-to-try law.
Uğur Şahin is a German oncologist and immunologist. He is the co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, which developed one of the major vaccines against COVID-19. His main fields of research are cancer research and immunology.
Cornelis Joseph Maria Melief is a Dutch immunologuist specialising in cancer immunology and immunotherapy, with a focus on therapeutic cancer vaccines. He is emeritus Professor, former head of the Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion at the Leiden University Medical Center, and Chief Scientific Officer at ISA Therapeutics in Netherlands. He is known for his work in the field of cancer immunology, devising new cancer therapies based on the activation of the patient's own immune system.
Whole-cell vaccines are a type of vaccine that has been prepared in the laboratory from entire cells. Such vaccines simultaneously contain multiple antigens to activate the immune system. They induce antigen-specific T-cell responses.
