Genetics and Immunology: Tumor-Specific Genetic Alterations as a Target for Immune Modulating Therapies

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportChapter in book/Anthology/ReportContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Anna S. Berghoff - , University Hospital Heidelberg, National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg (Author)
  • Jakob Nikolas Kather - , National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg (Author)
  • Dirk Jäger - , National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg (Author)

Abstract

Targeting the immune system therapeutically has been a long-standing approach in oncology treatment. The interaction between the immune system and cancer was already discovered in 1863 by Virchow, who hypothesized that sites of chronic inflammation are likely to be the origin of cancer. More recently, immune evasion was announced a hallmark of cancer. In the early phase of tumor induction, the immune system is still able to eliminate most of the cancer-initiating cells. However, the selection pressure for cells circumventing immune responses results in an equilibrium between immune attack and the growing tumor. Eventually, the cancer cells manage to evade the immune response via several immunosuppressive and escape mechanisms.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationOncoimmunology
EditorsLaurence Zitvogel, Guido Kroemer
PublisherSpringer Science + Business Media
Pages231-246
Number of pages16
ISBN (electronic)978-3-319-62431-0
ISBN (print)978-3-319-62430-3, 978-3-319-87310-7
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-3730-5348/work/198594703

Keywords