Current Immunotherapeutic Strategies in Cancer

This book offers a comprehensive review of recent advances in cancer immunotherapy, and explores the value and limitations of the most effective current therapeutic strategies and emerging treatment modalities. It discusses in detail the successes achieved using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), including developments with regard to conjugated mAbs and also bispecific mAbs as novel treatment options for leukemia and solid tumors. It also examines the advances toward personalized immunotherapy, focusing on the effectiveness of adoptive cell therapy using genetically engineered T cells with tumor-associated antigen-specific T-cell receptors and chimeric antigen receptors, as well as the role of tailored vaccines based on the patient’s cancer mutanome. Further, it describes the impressive therapeutic results recently achieved with checkpoint inhibitors, and analyzes novel strategies to modulate the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Written by leading international experts and providing up-to-date information on emerging strategies, such as oncolytic virus-based therapy, epigenetic therapy, and combination therapy, the book appeals to all those with an interest in immunotherapy as it comes of age.

Professor Matthias Theobald holds an MD from the University of Ulm, Germany, where he also completed his clinical training in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology. After several years of clinical and experimental research at the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Ulm University Hospital, he moved to La Jolla, CA, to continue basic biomedical research at the Department of Immunology, The Scripps Research Institute. In 1995, he became an experimental group leader and clinical attendee at the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Medical School, Mainz, Germany. From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Theobald held a José Carreras Leukemia Foundation Chair at JGU, and from 2006 to 2009 he served as a Full Professor of Hematology and Director of the Department of Hematology and Van Creveld Clinic at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. Since 2009, Dr. Theobald has been a Professor of Hematology and Oncology and Director of the Department of Hematology, Oncology, and Pneumology at the JGU Medical Center Mainz, Germany. He has served as the Chairman of the University Cancer Center Mainz since 2011, was Associate Editor of The Hematology Journal and serves on various other editorial boards. He is an expert in clinical leukemia research, immunotherapy of malignant diseases, and in experimental tumor and stem cell transplantation immunology. His laboratory has been instrumental in the development of TCR gene therapy as a novel tool in tackling malignant disease.