CELLULAR IMMUNOTHERAPY: A MODERN APPROACH TO TREATMENT OF ONCOLOGICAL DISEASES

Abstract

Our understanding of anticancer immune surveillance currently serves as a basis for development of novel therapies that utilize patient’s own immune system as an anticancer agent. Previously, cancer immunotherapy mostly included non-specific immunomodulating agents, cytokines, or cancer cell-based tumor vaccines. Emerging understanding of diverse interactions between the immune system and cancer cells allows to develop novel, more effective therapeutic approaches that target only specific populations of immune cells. Recent studies focus on testing efficiency of allogenic and authologous anticancer immunity, strategies for ex vivo expansion of these cells, and approaches to increase their anticancer activity and specificity. Most recent approaches focus on re-targeting immune cells to specific tumor antigens, shifting the balance of immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment towards immune stimulation and utilizing immune cells to target tumor architecture. This review is focused on the prospects of different immuno-therapeutic strategies.

Keywords

• сellular immunotherapy
• therapeutic antibodies
• adoptive immunotherapy
• cancer vaccine
• chimeric antigen receptor