Cancer Immunotherapy and Preclinical Studies: Why We Are Not Wasting Our Time with Animal Experiments

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Truly Tumor-Specific Antigens

One of the most important discoveries in tumor immunology following Gorer's [1] work was the identification of unique tumor-specific antigens [3], [4], [5], [6]. For example, a landmark paper by Klein and colleagues [7] demonstrated that a host could be immunized to reject its own cancer cells. The elegant experimental design of this study proved that autologous T-cell responses destroy autologous cancer cells; the study excluded the possibility that the antigens were artificially caused by

Proper choice of animal model

Almost all human tumors are established by the time they are recognized clinically. Therefore the main objective of the experimental immunologist is to select models that are relevant and have predictive value for patients who have established solid tumors, superficially spreading early-stage cancer or microdisseminated or dormant cancer cells. Furthermore, the experimental immunologist can address the problem of how to prevent some selected cancers. The main purpose of an animal model is to

Summary

Experiments using tumor transplantation have laid major foundations for immunology and cancer immunotherapy. Much evidence indicates that unique truly tumor-specific antigens are the most effective tumor-rejection antigens, and these antigens clearly occur on human tumors. Autologous tumor cell vaccination or autologous T-cell transfer allows T-cell responses to these antigens and opens the way to individualized cancer immunotherapy. Other promising targets are growth factors, growth factor

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Thomas N. Krausz for helping with the examination of the histologic specimens.

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    This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants RO1-CA22677, RO1-CA37516, PO1-CA97296 and by the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center CA-14599.

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