Seng-Lai Tan (editor) - Immuno-Oncology Cellular and Translational Approaches

Cancer would be quite common in long-lived organisms if not for the protective effects of immunity

Ehrlich P, Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 5, 273 (1909)

The first wave of cancer immunotherapeutics, including cytokines, targeted and immune-modulating antibodies, and adoptive cellular immunotherapy, has resulted in long-lasting overall survival and potentially permanent protection against cancer recurrence. Unfortunately, only a small number of cancer patients respond favorably to current immune-based modalities, with some experiencing severe immune-related adverse events. Notwithstanding, the remarkable clinical success of immuno-oncology has sparked a new hope in our fight against cancer, with exponentially growing biotechnology and pharmaceutical efforts to search for the next generation of safer and more effective cancer immunotherapeutics aimed at broadening and prolonging patient response rates.

The main goal of this book is to serve as a general reference guide for identifying and applying cell-based translational assays commonly used as well as for assessing the therapeutic potential of new immuno-oncology therapeutics and advancing their mechanism of action. Given the high rates of clinical failures in oncology and the questionable predictive value of widely used animal models, increasing emphasis is being placed on the utility of in vitro and ex vivo translational assays using primary human cells. One noted paradigm shift away from the strict reliance on traditional cell-based assays and animal models in the biomedical industries is the application of primary cells, including human patient biosamples, that preserve or recapitulate as much as possible the essential human immune-tumor components observed in cancer patients.

It is also hoped that this book will provide readers with a baseline understanding of the pros and cons as well as key considerations for applying these assays that are more reflective of the human immune-tumor microenvironment to increase their translatability into the clinic. It is impossible for any of these assay systems to accurately model the various clinical tumor types and their relevance in terms of the immune contexture observed in cancer patients. Furthermore, patients enrolling in clinical trials usually have established cancers that are refractory to several previous lines of therapies that may result in compromised immunity and/or emergence of other immune escape mechanisms. Thus, as we improve our understanding of drug resistance mechanisms observed in patients, it is also envisioned that this book will serve as a starting point for further improvement and refinement of human translational assays that represent these scenarios for combinatorial drug screens and for developing precision medicines.