A New Era for Cancer Immunotherapy Based on the Genes that Encode Cancer Antigens

• Published in: Immunity 1999-03, Vol.10 (3), p.281-287
• Main Author: Rosenberg, Steven A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Antigens, Neoplasm - genetics; Antigens, Neoplasm - immunology; Cancer Vaccines - genetics; Cancer Vaccines - immunology; Humans; Immunotherapy - methods; Immunotherapy - trends; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - immunology; Neoplasms - therapy
• ISSN: 1074-7613; 1097-4180
• DOI: 10.1016/S1074-7613(00)80028-X

In 1929, reviewing the available information concerning cancer immunotherapy, W. H. Woglom wrote, "It would be as difficult to reject the right ear and leave the left ear intact as it is to immunize against cancer" (1929). Minimal progress had been made since the earliest descriptions of attempts to immunize against cancer by Nooth, the surgeon to the Duke of Kent, who in 1777 inoculated himself with cancer tissue, or the physician to Louis XVIII, who in 1808 injected himself with breast cancer tissue. Knowledge of the cellular immune system was sparse, and as late as 1958 the Journal of Immunology did not list the word "lymphocyte" in its index. Most attempts to develop cancer vaccines involved immunization of cancer patients using either their own or allogeneic tumors along with a variety of nonspecific immune adjuvants. Even as the basic tenets of modern cellular immunology were elucidated, studies of cancer immunotherapy languished at the periphery of respectable science due to a lack of information regarding the molecular identification of the components of the putative immune reaction against human cancers. In the past decade, however, the convergence of information from basic studies of cellular and molecular immunology and the application of recombinant DNA techniques to produce pharmacologic quantities of biologic molecules normally present only in minute amounts have substantially changed views concerning the immune response to human cancer and have provided the first demonstrations that immune reactions against cancer antigens can lead to the regression of invasive tumors in selected patients. The molecular identification of tumor antigens, their immunodominant peptides, and the T cell receptors that recognize them have placed studies of tumor immunology and immunotherapy in the mainstream of immunologic research.