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Targeted immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that aims to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer cells more effectively. This approach differs from traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, which indiscriminately attack rapidly dividing cells, whether they're cancerous or healthy. Here's a detailed look at targeted immunotherapy:
1. Principle: The basic idea behind targeted immunotherapy is to specifically direct the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells while minimizing damage to normal cells. This is achieved by exploiting specific molecular targets that are more prevalent or exclusively found on cancer cells.
2. Types of Targeted Immunotherapy:
• Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs): These are lab-made molecules that can bind to specific targets on cancer cells. Some monoclonal antibodies mark cancer cells so that they will be better seen and destroyed by the immune system. Others are designed to interfere with cancer cell function or carry toxins directly to the cancer cells.
• Checkpoint Inhibitors: These drugs "unmask" cancer cells. Cancer cells often evade the immune system by exploiting certain proteins (checkpoints) that prevent immune cells from attacking them. Checkpoint inhibitors block these proteins, enabling the immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells.
• Cancer Vaccines: Unlike traditional vaccines, cancer vaccines are designed to be administered after the patient has cancer. They work by stimulating the immune system to attack cancer cells.
• Adoptive Cell Transfer (ACT): This involves modifying a patient's own immune cells to make them more effective at attacking cancer cells. CAR-T cell therapy, a type of ACT, involves genetically engineering T cells to produce receptors on their surface called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), which allow the T cells to better recognize and attack cancer cells.
3. Advantages:
• Specificity: Targeted immunotherapies are designed to specifically attack cancer cells, which can lead to fewer side effects compared to traditional therapies.
• Potency: They can be extremely effective, particularly in cases where other treatments have failed.
• Adaptive: Some therapies, like CAR-T cell therapy, are tailored to each individual patient, offering a personalized treatment approach.
4. Challenges and Side Effects:
• Immune-Related Side Effects:As these therapies stimulate or modify the immune system, they can sometimes cause it to attack normal cells, leading to potentially serious side effects.
• High Cost and Accessibility: Many targeted immunotherapies are expensive to produce and administer.
• Effectiveness: Not all cancers respond to these therapies, and in some cases, cancers can develop resistance.
5. Research and Development: The field of targeted immunotherapy is rapidly evolving, with ongoing research aimed at improving efficacy, reducing side effects, and making these therapies accessible to a broader range of patients.
In summary, targeted immunotherapy represents a significant advance in cancer treatment, offering more personalized and often more effective options compared to traditional therapies. However, it also comes with its own set of challenges and is an area of active research and development.
GenSmart Optimization is a free online tool for performing codon optimization to improve gene expression. GenScript's patented algorithms are integrated into the tool to optimize the computing capability of high-performance sequence generation.
GenSmart™ Design is a free online DNA construct design tool developed by GenScript. GenSmart™ Design has two design modules, the Create Construct module for individual plasmid design and the Create Library module for DNA library design.
This online tool shows commonly used genetic codon frequency table in expression host organisms including Escherichia coli and other common host organisms.
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If you know of any terms that have been omitted from this glossary that you feel would be useful to include, please send detail to the Editorial Office at GenScript: [email protected]