Advance Research in Immuno-Oncology Drug Development

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue contains contributions from expert researchers on the Advance in Immuno-Oncology Drug Development.

Binding affinity and target specificity are key aspects for the use of therapeutic antibodies in cancer immunotherapy, as shown by cumulative structural data. The development of therapeutic antibodies has many drawbacks such as poor tissue and tumor penetration, very long half-lifetime, lack of oral bioavailability, immunogeneticity, and difficult and costly production. Mimetic peptides and small molecules are proposed as new alternatives to block immune system inhibition caused by cancer cells, and have the potential to overcome the drawbacks of therapeutic antibodies. The special issue Advance in Immuno-Oncology Drug Development will contain recent high-level articles on the following topics:

• Structural data on the immunological checkpoint receptors CTLA-4, PD1/PD-L1, and others;
• In silico approaches to describe the inhibition of checkpoint proteins by therapeutic antibodies;
• Test/development/design of peptides as immuno-oncology drugs;
• Test/development/design of small molecules as inhibitors targeting immunological checkpoint receptors;
• Role of cancer-infected cell membranes in immuno-oncology drug development;
• Genomic contributions to small immuno-oncology drug development.

Prof. Dr. Valder Nogueira Freire
Guest Editor

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