Handbook Of Cancer Vaccines (cancer Drug Discovery And Development)

The quest to harness the immune system for the treatment of cancer has been of great interest for more than 100 years, but new discoveries illuminating the requirements for immune activation and recognition of cancers have greatly increased the promise of reaching this goal. In Handbook of Cancer Vaccines, leading scientific investigators and clinicians distill the vast body of literature on cancer vaccines to create an authoritative survey of the scientific background for such therapeutic vaccines, the challenges to their development, and their current uses in treating cancer. The authors examine the basic issues that affect all vaccines (such as immune adjuvants and prime-boost strategies), describe cutting-edge methods for antigen discovery, and review the preclinical development phases for each major vaccine strategy. Topics of particular interest include the clinical results for cancer vaccines now beginning to be used in the treatment of many common cancers, the monitoring of biologic responses to these vaccines, and the statistical and regulatory issues affecting the design and conduct of their clinical trials. Comprehensive and authoritative, the Handbook of Cancer Vaccines makes available to medical oncologists and immunologists a cutting-edge synthesis of the scientific rationale, preclinical data, and clinical results for the powerful new generation of vaccines now under development for the treatment of a wide range of human cancers. The book is laid out into four sections including a Basic Science Background, General Vaccine and Immunotherapy Strategies, Tumor Specific Vaccines Being Developed and closing with a final section on General Background of Clinical Trials and Immune Analysis. The first section provides an overview of antigen processing, tumor antigen discovery, T cell activation, and augmenting the antigen-specific immune response. Section two progresses into a discussion of the different vaccination strategies currently under development. The third section includes chapters that introduce the reader to clinical trials in various malignancies. The final section in the book includes chapters discussing important issues in clinical trial design, analysis, and the regulatory requirements for bringing candidate vaccines through clinical trials and into clinical practice and use. Morse (Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center) presents summaries of the literature on cancer vaccines to survey the scientific background for therapeutic vaccines, the challenges to their development, and their current uses in treating cancer. Contributors examine basic issues that affect all vaccines, such as immune adjuvants and prime-boosting strategies, describe cutting-edge methods for antigen discovery, and review the preclinical development phases for each major vaccine strategy. The book will be of interest to medical oncologists and immunologists who need a synthesis of the scientific rationale, preclinical data, and clinical results for the powerful new generation of vaccines under development for the treatment of human cancers. An authoritative survey of the scientific background for therapeutic cancer vaccines, the challenges to their development, and their current uses in treating cancer. The authors examine the basic issues that effect all vaccines (such as immune adjuvants and prime-boost strategies), describe the methods for antigen discovery, and review the preclinical development phases for each major vaccine strategy. They also spell out the clinical results for cancer vaccines now beginning to be used in the treatment of many common cancers. Interest in activating the immune system to control tumors dates to more than 100 yr ago and is often attributed to William B. Coley who used the inflammatory response to bacterial products as a form of immunotherapy (1).