ABSTRACT
During the past decade, tumor immunologists have been extremely productive, resulting in many important advances that have been critical in improving cancer immunotherapies. Two seminal discoveries that sparked this remarkable progress were (1) the discovery of genes encoding tumor antigens and (2) the discovery of genes encoding costimulatory molecules. Together, these provided immunologists with the tools needed to initiate a T-cell response directed at antigens expressed on spontaneous human tumors. Terry Boon and coworkers at the Ludwig Cancer Institute in Belgium were the first to identify the MAGE-1 gene, which encodes an antigen expressed on metastatic skin melanomas [1]. This was the first report of a gene defining a target antigen that was expressed on tumor cells and recognized by antigen-specific T cells; it has led to the discovery of many other tumor antigens.
