Dear Colleagues,

Immunotherapy is the treatment of a disease by activating, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response. If the immune system recognizes the tumor cells as "bad", tumor cells can be fought using an immunological response, which has been an interesting research area for clinical treatment for years. What can we expect in the near future in immunological cancer therapy? Since the use of interferon (IFN alpha) for the treatment of patients with hairy cell leukemia or of interleukin-2 (IL-2) for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma, there have been further successful developments in this area. The vaccine Sipuleucel-T was developed for prostate carcinoma, the checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab for the treatment of advanced melanoma and a checkpoint inhibitor that acts against the protein programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) or its ligand PD-1 ligand 1. (PD-L1). However, there are still some hurdles to be overcome to ensure that it can be used effectively and with as few side effects as possible. The efficiency of immunotherapies is difficult to assess because only a subgroup of patients reacts immunologically to immunotherapy. Difficulties also arise with solid tumors due to the accessibility (delivery barriers) compared to hematological tumors. In addition, some undesired immunological side effects (autoimmune side effects) are known that lead to an attack on healthy tissue. This is also due to the high dose required due to short half-lives and ineffective transport technologies to the target tissue. Some therapeutics are already being used in numerous clinical trials, but many have not yet been approved by the drug authorities. New approaches are, e.g., the development of patient-specific immunotherapies based on biomarker expression on cancer cells. However, this also includes the controlled, timed and targeted release of drugs in immunotherapy via nanoparticles. Novel transport technologies, such as nanoparticles, implants, scaffolds, biomaterial and cell-based platforms, are required. These transport technologies should protect the drug until it is transported to the target cells or activation of the drugs through responsive stimuli, such as pH, light or ultrasound, can be enabled. Are we on the way to successfully beating cancer through therapy with checkpoint inhibitors (PD-1/PD-L1, CTLA4), cytokines for lymphocyte promotion (interferons, interleukins, granulocyte-marcrophage colony-stimulationg factor), engineered T cell therapies ( chimeric antigen receptor T, T cell receptor T cells), antibodies against co-stimulatory receptors (CD28, tumor necrosis factor receptor family), cancer vaccines (tumor cell lysate, dendritic cells, nucleic acids, neo-antigens), oncolytic viruses or bispecific antibodies? Submit your current research results and share them with the research community. This is the only way to successfully offer individual and optimal cancer therapy for patients in the near future.

Dr. Pierre Tennstedt
Dr. Su Jung Oh-Hohenhorst
Guest Editors

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