New immune-based therapies for cancer are taking center stage and are revolutionizing cancer treatment. Drugs that “take the brakes” off the immune system (immune checkpoint blockers) have been FDA-approved in 15 distinct cancer entities, and the discoveries leading to those treatments led to the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine. More recent strategies to engineer immune cells to specifically recognize and destroy cancer cells have been successful in several different blood-derived cancers. An important aspect of immunotherapy treatments is the duration of clinical benefit—many patients appear to be cured of even the most advanced disease. A tremendous amount of research is being performed aiming to understand how these approaches work when they are successful, and why they fail in a subset of patients and cancer types. Understanding these details is leading to new strategies to expand efficacy further. This lecture will discuss the basic tenets of immunotherapies and touch on the cutting edge of current advances.
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