What is Immunotherapy and Why is it so Exciting for Cancer Treatment?

Immunotherapy is treatment that relies on being able to recruit the body’s normal immune cells to kill cancer cells. Under normal circumstances, the immune system helps to identify and kill cancer cells when they first start and before a cancer grows large enough to cause problems, just like the immune system helps to fight off infections before they make a person sick. Unfortunately, cancer cells have ways that they hide from immune cells and put those cells to sleep before the cancer cells can be killed. This presentation explains how recently approved drugs and treatment approaches are able to “wake-up” the immune system to identify and kill cancer cells even after the cancer becomes big enough to be a clinical problem.

This lecture was presented as part of the Community Lunch and Learn Lecture Series.