Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Review
Nature Medicine 9, 269 - 277 (2003)
doi:10.1038/nm0303-269
Immunotherapy: past, present and future
Thomas A. Waldmann1
Abstract
Harnessing the immune system to treat chronic infectious diseases or cancer is a major goal of immunotherapy. Among others, impediments to this aim include host failure to identify tumor antigens, tolerance to self and negative immunoregulatory mechanisms. But with recent progress, active and passive immunotherapy are proving themselves as effective therapeutic strategies.
Active immunotherapy has been effective against agents that normally cause acute self-limiting infectious diseases followed by immunity. However, effective immunotherapy for chronic infectious diseases or cancer will require the use of appropriate target antigens; the optimization of the interaction between the antigenic peptide, the antigen-presenting cell (APC) and the T cell; and the simultaneous blockade of negative regulatory mechanisms that impede immunotherapeutic effects.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
