Using the Immune System to Fight Cancer

Andre Goy, MD, Chairman and Director and Chief of Lymphoma at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses recent research into fighting cancer with the immune system.

The effort to harness the immune system to fight cancers cells has had some success, though little that translate into lasting benefit for a patient. More recently, the development of immunology has focused on unleashing T cells and promoting their antitumor effect.

Immunology research has focused, among other things, on generating chimeric antigen T cells and developing monoclonal antibodies to unleash T cells.

Clinical Pearls

The oncology community, Goy says, believes that using the immune system seems promising and could translate into enormous benefit for patients.

• The research effort to harness the immune system has had some success
• Immunology research has focused on generating chimeric antigen T cells and developing monoclonal antibodies to unleash T cells
• Using the immune system to fight cancer cells could translate into enormous benefit for patients