Advantages Of Immunotherapy

A key factor in the development of tumors is the ability of cancerous cells to evade recognition from the bodies’ natural defense against cancer, the immune system. Immunotherapies effectively block the pathways that shield cancerous cells from being identified, and thus the promote the bodies own anti-tumor response. However, one challenge to immunotherapy has been its combination with chemotherapy, the mainstay of cancer treatment. While chemotherapy is extremely effective in stopping the rapid division of cancerous cells, its toxic immunosuppressive side-effect make it difficult to combine with

Some of traditional drugs may be effective in patients whose cancers have a specific molecular target, and not for other patients. To solve this problem of patient-specificity, pharmaceutical research have seen the expansion of individually tailored cancer treatment, which is an application of targeted therapy, and this is where biopharmaceuticals are. As an increasing part of the population is diagnosed with cancer and as these patients live longer, increasing care will be given to patients who have received these drugs. Moreover, in the case of cancer therapy, those drugs and especially with mABs are a promise of less side effects : recombinant DNA technology makes it possible to genetically engineer an antibody to reduce the risk of host immune response.

Active immunizing agents stimulate the body to make its own antibodies and to continue on making them, the

Many doctors, physicians, researchers and biotech companies--including the revolutionary Seattle Genetics research facility--are now turning to antibody-assisted cancer treatments and precisely targeted cures instead of treating cancer with a cocktail of chemicals and radiation that generate risky side effects and damage the healthy tissue that patients need to recover. Cancers are among the most frightening and difficult-to-treat illnesses. Ranked as the leading cause of death and disability, cancer is actually an umbrella term that covers many different diseases. Each person faces a unique disease because cancers interact with the body's existing cells, so each case has a

The research presented in Jedd D. Wolchok “Cancer’s Off Switch” examines two different forms of immunotherapy used to treat cancer cells by boosting the patient's own immune system defenses. The article provides a comprehensive history of the scientific discoveries and previous research that lead to the immunotherapy treatments, specifically the different levels of the immune system. In addition, the article addresses two different methods of immunotherapy currently in testing in clinical use. The research is educationally significant because it focuses on the body's internal defense system and attempts to disable the brakes cancer cells enforce on the immune system, which has shown progress in both tumor size regression and improvements in

Frank Emmrich is the director of the Fraunhofer IZI and a professor at the University of Leipzig, where he has headed the Institute of Clinical Immunology and Transfusion Medicine since 1994. This dual position enables the efficient sharing of experience, not to mention the optimal supervision of undergraduate and doctoral dissertations, and provides an excellent basis for cooperation. Both a doctor and an immunologist, Prof. Emmrich spent 13 years as both a researcher and department head at Max Planck Institutes in Freiburg and Erlangen. Over seven of these years he was a professor at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen-Nuremberg. From its founding eight years ago up to this year he also was director of the BMBF funded institute of Translational Regenerative Medicine, the TRM, at Leipzig. Since 2008 he is also a member of the German Ethics Council and additionally member or chairman in a multitude of scientific organisations such as the German Stem Cell Network. He first came into contact with Dr. Burkhardt during her dissertation thesis on genetics of autoimmune diseases and since 2011 advised and accompanied Dr. Burkhardt’s BMBF funded project as her mentor at the Translational Center for Regenerative Medicine (TRM) Leipzig. Currently, more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications are listed by Prof. Emmrich in addition to several patent applications. In addition to supervision provided by Prof. Emmrich, Christopher Oelkrug, Head of Immunotherapy/Oncology Unit at the Fraunhofer IZI, will accompany the proposed project. He published over 20 peer-reviewed research articles with a focus on the development and testing of novel therapeutic strategies with the aid of innovative tumour models for the treatment of cancer patients and the enhancement of therapeutic cancer vaccines through different administration strategies. Thus, his research and expertise complements the purposed of this

Cancer immunotheraphy is a concept that has been around for centuries. Back in the 1800s, a bone surgeon named William Coley injected his patients with a vaccine consisting of killed bacteria hoping it would stimulate the body's defense system. During the 1990s, physicians treated people with cancer with a cytokine treatment. This treatment involved high amounts of interleuken-2 (IL-2) and interferon-γ (IFNγ), also known as inflammatory cytokines. These inflammatory cytokines were released by white blood cells that fight infection (T cells). However, this treatment can have very dangerous side effects such as vascular leakage and kidney damage, but some people that received the cytokine treatment have lived for decades. In the year of 1996,

Macromolecules BCM 261 10/13/2014 Caroline Venter 13019865 Introduction Background Many of the molecules that are crucial in living organisms and systems are very large and are usually made up of macromolecules. Macromolecules are organic molecules with a large molecular mass and consist of repeating units called monomers. These repeating monomers are formed via condensation or dehydration reactions (loss of water or other small molecules in order to join two molecules) and usually each have a small molecular mass which contributes to the overall large molecular mass of macromolecules (Jenkins, Kratochvíl, Stepto, & Suter, 2009).

In anti-sera the researchers have to make the antibodies of desired specificity is to immunize the animals with the correct antigen and then will get the anti-sera from the animals’ blood. This method required many factors to be purified such as the antigen preparation and the antisera specificities. Therefore, the monoclonal antibodies are superior to anti-sera because this method does not require a purified form of antigen. This method uses B cells to fuse with tumor cells to from hybridoma which will produce antibodies for the desired specificity and the product of antibodies are identical.

For successful activation of a cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL), two signals are required from the antigen presenting cell (APC): Antigen presentation (T cell receptor binding to MHC1) and co-stimulation, CD28 on the CTL binds to co-stimulatory molecules; CD80/86 on the APC.

Therefore, dose and duration of treatment is limited, which in turn limits the amount of normal and tumor cell death. A second mechanism is the suppression of cancer cells for variable periods of time without cell death. This mechanism is referred to as remission. Unfortunately, the cancer can return at any time, and it is sometimes stronger. Here another limitation is introduced. Some tumor cells can develop resistance to a particular chemical agent, or several chemical agents, limiting the types of chemotherapeutic agents available for effective use. The last mechanism is cell differentiation, which helps the immune system learn to recognize and fight tumor cells (1).

Many patients are dying of prostate cancer as standard treatments are not providing the necessary results. There are new types of immunotherapy drugs which are known to work miracles for several forms of cancer. The probability of this drug helping those with prostate cancer is extremely small. There has yet to be evidence collected about the benefits and pitfalls of the treatment. If doctors were to test it on patients outside of a clinical trial, then that could be up for debate within the medical community. The drugs can have potentially deadly side effects including liver failure and nerve damage, but most patients only experience minor problems. Doctors are able to determine from biomarkers if immunotherapy treatment will help patients, but that testing is not completely accurate. Some doctors believe that they should try every possible

As the world continues to suffer from these devastating diseases, researchers continue to find alternative therapeutic ways of addressing cancer treatment. It is on this premise that various immunotherapeutic alternatives have emerged and currently garnering the greatest level of attention and already raising hope throughout the world in addressing the treatment of NSCLC. However, this can no longer be viewed as a discovery but a wave in the medicine world that began in the 20th century. Various researchers have found the importance of the role of immune systems in fighting the growth of tumor caused by cancer cells. A study by Huncharek (2000) stated that specific immune boosters are capable of eliminating preclinical cancers. In contrast, Jermal et al. (2011) found that immunotherapy is an effective approach for the treatment of tumors that have already turned into solid. Similarly, the researchers highlighted that immunotherapy can be an effective approach to the treatment of melanoma as well as renal cell cancers (Lasalvia-Prisco, 2008). However, Jemal et al. (2011) noted that immunotherapy cannot achieve much in cancer treatment due to limitation brought about by the emission of immunosuppressive cytokines and subsequent loss of antigen expressions. Recent development in research studies on the immunotherapy approach to cancer treatment continues to elicit mixed reactions among researchers of medicinal ecology (Jadad et al., 1996). However, recent development in

Immunology basically involves understanding the immune system and how it responds to various disease conditions. the immune system consists of a number of components. Traditionally, it is divided into humoral and cellular immune responses. It can also be distinguished into innate and adaptive immunity. The innate immunity can discriminate between normal tissues , self and newly encountered non-self-proteins while the adaptive immunity is the more complex system aimed at the eradication of intracellular pathogens. To do this, antigen derived from such pathogens that are often new to the host organism, need to be recognised by receptor-bearing specialised immune cells which respond to a complex system of stimulatory and costimulatory signals. Better understanding of the human immune system has led to the identification of a number of tumor-associated antigens in the 1980s and the development of various immunotherapeutic approaches. In recent years, identification of the specific antigenic MHC class I epitopes, advancements in genetic engineering, gene delivery, and cell-based therapeutic approaches allowed development of the novel immunotherapeutics.

Immunoglobulins are also known as antibodies and they are glycoproteins that are produced by plasma cells. These antibodies are the line of defence against foreign particles such as viruses and bacteria in our human bodies. This is why so much research has been conducted to gain more understanding and knowledge on this protein. The more we know the behavior, structure and function of this protein, the more doors will be open in the field of medicine in fighting off these foreign particles. The interesting aspect of immunoglobulins is that they specifically bind to specific antigens to fight them off such as a specific bacteria or virus, so the specificity of these proteins is very interesting and complex