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A cancer vaccine 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.
Glioblastoma, previously known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is one of the most aggressive types of cancer that begin within the brain. Initially, signs and symptoms of glioblastoma are nonspecific. They may include headaches, personality changes, nausea, and symptoms similar to those of a stroke. Symptoms often worsen rapidly and may progress to unconsciousness.
In biology, chimeric antigen receptors (CARs)—also known as chimeric immunoreceptors, chimeric T cell receptors or artificial T cell receptors—are receptor proteins that have been engineered to give T cells the new ability to target a specific antigen. The receptors are chimeric in that they combine both antigen-binding and T cell activating functions into a single receptor.
Cancer immunotherapy is the stimulation of the immune system to treat cancer, improving on the immune system's natural ability to fight the disease. It is an application of the fundamental research of cancer immunology and a growing subspecialty of oncology.
Virotherapy is a treatment using biotechnology to convert viruses into therapeutic agents by reprogramming viruses to treat diseases. There are three main branches of virotherapy: anti-cancer oncolytic viruses, viral vectors for gene therapy and viral immunotherapy. These branches use three different types of treatment methods: gene overexpression, gene knockout, and suicide gene delivery. Gene overexpression adds genetic sequences that compensate for low to zero levels of needed gene expression. Gene knockout uses RNA methods to silence or reduce expression of disease-causing genes. Suicide gene delivery introduces genetic sequences that induce an apoptotic response in cells, usually to kill cancerous growths. In a slightly different context, virotherapy can also refer more broadly to the use of viruses to treat certain medical conditions by killing pathogens.
Targeted therapy or molecularly targeted therapy is one of the major modalities of medical treatment (pharmacotherapy) for cancer, others being hormonal therapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy. As a form of molecular medicine, targeted therapy blocks the growth of cancer cells by interfering with specific targeted molecules needed for carcinogenesis and tumor growth, rather than by simply interfering with all rapidly dividing cells. Because most agents for targeted therapy are biopharmaceuticals, the term biologic therapy is sometimes synonymous with targeted therapy when used in the context of cancer therapy. However, the modalities can be combined; antibody-drug conjugates combine biologic and cytotoxic mechanisms into one targeted therapy.
Cancer immunology is an interdisciplinary branch of biology 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.
Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) is the transfer of cells into a patient. The cells may have originated from the patient or from another individual. The cells are most commonly derived from the immune system with the goal of improving immune functionality and characteristics. In autologous cancer immunotherapy, T cells are extracted from the patient, genetically modified and cultured in vitro and returned to the same patient. Comparatively, allogeneic therapies involve cells isolated and expanded from a donor separate from the patient receiving the cells.
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.
James Patrick Allison is an American immunologist and Nobel laureate who holds the position of professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
Juno Therapeutics Inc is an American biopharmaceutical company founded in 2013 through a collaboration of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and pediatrics partner Seattle Children's Research Institute. The company was launched with an initial investment of $120 million, with a remit to develop a pipeline of cancer immunotherapy drugs. The company raised $300 million through private funding and a further $265 million through their IPO.
Prescient Therapeutics Ltd is a clinical stage oncology company developing personalised medicine approaches to cancer, including targeted and cellular therapies. The company's key programs are focused on the development of a universal CAR-T platform (OmniCAR), enhanced CAR-T cell manufacturing & function (CellPryme) and on two small molecule drug targeted therapies.
Carl H. June is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research into T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Dr. Misty R. Jenkins is an Australian scientist known for her research into lymphocytes and cancer treatment.
Peter Edward Fecci is an American neurosurgeon, professor and researcher. He is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Pathology and Immunology at Duke University School of Medicine. He also serves as Director of the Duke Center for Brain and Spine Metastasis, Director of the Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program, Residency Program Director, and Associate Deputy Director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke.
Marcela V. Maus is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She works on immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer, using genetically engineered T cells to target malignancies (cancer).
Duane A. Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D. is an American physician-scientist and university professor. He is currently employed at the University of Florida College of Medicine, in Gainesville, Florida as the Assistant Vice President for Research, Associate Dean for Translational Science and Clinical Research, and Director of the University of Florida (UF) Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He is the Phyllis Kottler Friedman Professor in the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery. and Co-Director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. Dr. Mitchell is also the Founder, President, and Chairman of iOncologi, Inc., a biotechnology company in Gainesville, FL specializing in immuno-oncology.
Epitopoietic Research Corporation (ERC) is a Belgian Pharmaceutical company developing ERC1671, which specialise in treatment for Glioblastoma multiforme which is the most aggressive form of brain cancer. In 2019, ERC became the first pharmaceutical company to provide treatment under the US Federal Right-to-try law.
T cell receptor T cell therapy (TCR-T) is a type of cancer immunotherapy. TCR-T therapies use heterodimers made of alpha and beta peptide chains to recognize MHC-presented polypeptide fragments molecules. Unlike CAR-T's cell surface antigens, TCR-T can recognize that larger set of intracellular antigen fragments. However, TCR-T cell therapy depends on MHC molecules, limiting its usefulness.
Cellular adoptive immunotherapy is a type of immunotherapy. Immune cells such as T-cells are usually isolated from patients for expansion or engineering purposes and reinfused back into patients to fight diseases using their own immune system. A major application of cellular adoptive therapy is cancer treatment, as the immune system plays a vital role in the development and growth of cancer. The primary types of cellular adoptive immunotherapies are T cell therapies. Other therapies include CAR-T therapy, CAR-NK therapy, macrophage-based immunotherapy and dendritic cell therapy.
References
- ↑ "Combining CAR T cells with existing immunotherapies may overcome resistance in glioblastomas".
- ↑ "Donald M. O'rourke | Faculty | About Us | Perelman School of Medicine | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania". www.med.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
- ↑ "Personnel | O'Rourke Lab | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania".
- ↑ "New Penn Medicine Center Brings Immunotherapy Research to Brain Tumor Treatment".
- ↑ "CAR T-cell therapy 'quite promising' for glioblastoma".
- ↑ "Combining CAR T cells with existing immunotherapies may overcome resistance in glioblastomas".
- ↑ O'Rourke, Donald M., et al. "A single dose of peripherally infused EGFRvIII-directed CAR T cells mediates antigen loss and induces adaptive resistance in patients with recurrent glioblastoma." Science translational medicine 9.399 (2017): eaaa0984.
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