ABSTRACT
This chapter covers bio-immunotherapies for cancer that directly or indirectly exploit the anti-tumour activities of particular cytokines or immune effector cells. The impetus for these approaches has been reinvigorated as a result of the renaissance of the concept of immunosurveillance1
and the significant advances that have been made in our understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underpinning tumour immunity.2 Faith in the concept that the immune system could control tumour development had fallen away in the 1970s when experiments of tumour induction with chemical carcinogens showed no increased frequency in animals with a severe deficiency in T-lymphocyte-mediated (T-cell-mediated) immune function – athymic nude mice. Indeed, a recent major review identifying the supposed hallmarks of cancer failed to acknowledge any significant role for the immune system in cancer.3
