There has been major growth in understanding immune suppression mechanisms and its relationship to cancer progression and therapy. This book highlights emerging new principles of immune suppression that drive cancer, and it offers radically new ideas about how therapy can be improved by attacking these principles. Following work that firmly establishes immune escape as an essential trait of cancer, recent studies have now defined specific mechanisms of tumor immune suppression. It also demonstrates how attacking tumors with molecular targeted therapeutics or traditional chemotherapeutic drugs can produce potent anti-tumor effects in preclinical models. This book provides basic, translational, and clinical cancer researchers with an indispensable overview of immune escape as a critical trait in cancer and how applying specific combinations of immunotherapy and chemotherapy to attack this trait may radically improve the treatment of advanced disease.
- Offers a synthesis of concepts that are useful to cancer immunologists and pharmacologists, who tend to work in disparate fields with little cross-communication
- Drs. Prendergast and Jaffee are internationally recognized leaders in cancer biology and immunology who have created a unique synthesis of fundamental and applied concepts in this important new area of cancer research
- Summarizes the latest insights into how immune escape defines an essential trait of cancer
- Includes numerous illustrations, including how molecular-targeted therapeutic drugs or traditional chemotherapy can be combined with immunotherapy to improve anti-tumor efficacy and how reversing immune suppression by the tumor can cause tumor regression
Dr. Prendergast is an international leader in basic and preclinical biomedical research, with deep expertise in the discovery and development of molecular therapies for cancer and other chronic diseases. A scientist and inventor, he is widely recognized for translating laboratory discoveries into practical medical innovations and for founding and advising multiple biomedical startup companies. He has led major advances in cancer immunotherapy, including pioneering work on IDO inhibition and the development of cryoimmune vaccination strategies to address drug‑resistant metastatic disease. Formerly Editor‑in‑Chief of Cancer Research, he has played a significant role in shaping the field’s scientific direction. As President and CEO of LIMR, Dr. Prendergast established the acapreneurial™ model, integrating nonprofit research with entrepreneurial biotechnologies to accelerate clinical impact, societal benefit, and sustainable innovation.
