PD-1/PD-L1 and Immunotherapy

Dear Colleagues,

The discovery of programmed cell death protein (PD-1) and its ligand’s (PD-L1) role in the inhibition of T cell function is one of the notable milestones in cancer research, achieved during the last two decades. Development of antibodies and small molecule inhibitors to disrupt the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathways has not only validated the field of immunotherapy in cancer research, but also identified other T cell checkpoint pathways that impact anti-tumor immune responses. As a testament to their success, checkpoint inhibitors are now standard of care for multiple tumor types, with many others being tested in clinical trials. Despite the effectiveness of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy across many tumor types, there are still tumors that are either resistant to these treatments or relapse after a brief initial response. A large portion of current immunotherapy research is focused on investigating this tumor resistance.

This Special Issue aims to cover the historical development of the PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors and their successes in clinical trials. We will also discuss studies on patients who fail to respond to checkpoint therapy, and their immunologically silent tumors. For these resistant tumors, many groups are attempting to develop complementary antibodies targeting alternative inhibitory immune checkpoints, or trying to find ways to utilize the immunostimulatory character of oncolytic virus immunotherapy or gene therapies to enhance T cell priming and anti-tumor immune response. The study of anti-PD-1 resistance is relatively a new research field, offering new avenues for expanding the literature for those interested in immunotherapy research.

Dr. Cole Peters
Dr. Fares Nigim
Dr. Praveen K. Bommareddy
Guest Editors

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• programmed cell death protein-1
• programmed death ligand-1
• PD1/PDL1
• immunotherapy
• oncolytic virus