Challenges of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pathology, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2025 | Viewed by 1034
Special Issue Editor
Interests: using low-dose immune checkpoint blockade in combination with oncolytic viruses for the treatment of advanced cancer; using apathogenic viruses for controlling unrelated viral diseases
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The immune system attacks foreign substances (non-self) by inflammation, while it tolerates normal tissues (self). Natural inhibitory feedback loops, i.e., immune checkpoints, reduce inflammation following immune activation. After successful vaccination programs against xenogeneic infectious diseases, the assumption was that host immunity would also be protective against isogeneic cancer. For a century, however, cancer immunotherapy trials have failed. Eventually, immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs resulted in an immunotherapy revolution such that 43.6% of US cancer patients are eligible for ICI therapy. Unfortunately, the price to pay for such a spectacular success was the impairment of self-tolerance. Widespread iatrogenic immune-related adverse events (irAEs) are becoming the nemesis of ICI therapies. It was proposed that irAEs are very similar to that of a chronic graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) reaction following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. This idea has paved the way for the administration of ultra-low doses of ICI drugs (ipilimumab 0.3 mg/kg plus nivolumab 0.5 mg/kg), which proved to be safer than that of the established protocols (irAEs of WHO Grade 3 and 4: in 6.11% and 2.29% of patients), without compromising efficacy (median overall survival: 19.3 months) in 131 unselected stage IV cancer patients with 23 different histological types of cancer who exhausted all conventional treatments. Ultra-low dose protocols are not only safer than standard ICI treatments, but are affordable to patients or countries who cannot pay the high cost of registered drugs. In this Special Issue, we welcome original research or review articles on molecular biology methods and techniques to verify the pathogenic molecular mechanism of irAEs. We also welcome articles proposing cost saving de-escalation studies to increase the safety of and access to highly effective ICI medications.
Prof. Dr. Tibor Bakacs
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- immune checkpoint inhibitor
- ICI
- safety of ICI drugs
- irAE of ICI drugs
- ultra-low-dose ICI
- cost saving with ICI drugs
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
