Further Advances in Cancer Immunotherapy: Going Beyond Checkpoint Blockade

Significant advances have been made to identify effective therapies that either restore or generate de novo a patient’s immune response to cancer, so-called immunotherapy or immuno-oncology (IO) therapies. Some tumors overcome immune surveillance by promoting mechanisms to evade or suppress the immune system. This conference report highlights the clinical promise and current challenges of IO therapy, including the use of immune-checkpoint antagonist monoclonal antibodies. Furthermore, this report investigates advances in preclinical modeling of cancer immunobiology and how this is helping our understanding of which patients will receive clinical benefits from current immune-checkpoint treatment. Looking to the future, the report looks at emerging IO approaches, which aim to specifically target the tumor microenvironment. This includes the use of toll-like receptors (TLRs) agonists that link the activation of innate immune, cells to the priming of T cells and an adaptive memory anti-tumor immune response through to the reversal of local immunosuppression using adenosinergic and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) inhibitors.