ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION This book focuses on different avenues that have a common goal of fi ghting against cancer, resulting in safe and effective active immunotherapies (therapeutic “vaccines”) against the disease, as described by recognized leaders in the fi eld. Harnessing a cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response, or in general, an optimal immune response to cancer, can be achieved by several means that are not mutually exclusive: turning on immunity against specifi c tumor antigens using new generations of cancer vaccines, by nonspecifi cally inducing antitumor immune responses with the administration of immune stimulating cytokines or immune modulating antibodies, by manipulating the tumor microenviroment to enhance immune cell infi ltration and function, or by creating large armies of tumor-specifi c T cells for adoptive cell transfer (ACT). Key to these efforts are fi rst, to understand the roadblocks that are set against the generation of robust immune responses, operational within the tumor environment, and second, studying how the immune system is manipulated by the therapeutic interventions with the application of modern, informative, and relevant immune monitoring assays. The book aims to cover all these aspects from three points of view: ( i ) lessons learned from nearly two decades of efforts in developing various platform technologies culminating with the approval of fi rst therapeutic vaccines for cancer; ( ii ) a perspective on several investigational agents in late-or early-stage development with companion immune monitoring and biomarker analysis technologies; ( iii ) a roadmap to future platform technologies that aim to integrate key advantages of diverse classes of immune intervention.
