Cancer’s Off Switch

The notion that the immune system could control cancer is not new. Attempts to harness host defenses against malignancy date back over 100 years to when William Coley, a surgeon at New York Cancer Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), tried using heat-killed bacteria for this purpos...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific American 2014-05, Vol.310 (5), p.40-45
Main Author: Wolchok, Jedd D.
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
Subjects:
Antibodies, Monoclonal - therapeutic use
Cancer
CTLA-4 Antigen - antagonists & inhibitors
CTLA-4 Antigen - immunology
Humans
Immune system
Ipilimumab
Medical treatment
Melanoma - pathology
Melanoma - therapy
Neoplasm Metastasis - therapy
Neoplasms - immunology
Neoplasms - therapy
Oncology
Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor - antagonists & inhibitors
Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor - immunology
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The notion that the immune system could control cancer is not new. Attempts to harness host defenses against malignancy date back over 100 years to when William Coley, a surgeon at New York Cancer Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), tried using heat-killed bacteria for this purpose. After noticing that some patients seemed to live longer if they developed an infection after their cancer surgery, Coley hypothesized that the intrinsic defense system that had been mobilized against the pathogen could also affect the tumor. Here, Wolchok talks about how researchers are developing a new generation of more powerful treatments against malignancy.
ISSN:0036-8733
1946-7087
DOI:10.1038/scientificamerican0514-40