Immunotherapy for Cancers

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer immunotherapy is a revolutionary tool to fight against cancer, restoring/re-awakening the immune host response by different approaches including vaccines (including nano-vaccines), cell therapies (including CAR-T and, more recently, CAR-NK), modified antibodies, immunocytokines, etc.

Although immunotherapy has emerged as the “next generation” of cancer treatment, it has not yet been shown to be successful in the treatment of all cancer types, for whom the preferential therapeutic options still remain radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and target therapy. This strongly suggests that a deeper examination of the interactions between immune cells in the micro- and macro-environment, which are currently poorly characterized, is still crucial for the clinical outcome and success of immunotherapy.

From this perspective, the immune-tumor microenvironment (TIME), as a key element in the new era of immunotherapy, has become a major challenge, and reverting this in the case of resistance to immunotherapy is still a major challenge. During this time, the roles of tissue-residing cells in promoting or suppressing tumor growth, metastasis and resistance to therapy have been gradually elucidated. Immunotherapy presents an opportunity to fight against cancer; several strategies have been employed but not all are successful. It is therefore clear that in the “window of unsuccessful immunotherapy”, a deeper knowledge of cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating immune suppression and angiogenesis is still required. It is also now clear that immunotherapy alone is not sufficient to eliminate cancer, thus opening new windows for therapeutic approaches based on combinations (in term of molecules and timing/sequences of their administration).

For this Special Issue, we aim to collect original research, reviews, mini-reviews and perspective articles reviewing/discussing the state of the art and/or proposing novel insights in basic and translational research of cancer immunotherapy. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• High-throughput (“omics” and bioinformatic) approaches followed by experimental validation to dissect (novel) molecular targets for cancer immunotherapy;
• TME/TIME-oriented molecular and cellular mechanisms/targets as potential candidates for immunotherapy;
• The role of chronic inflammation and fibrosis in permitting immune-escape and/or resistance to immunotherapy;
• Metabolic and immunometabolic drivers of immunosuppression, tumor progression/metastasis and resistance to cancer immunotherapy;
• Combination approaches, including drug repurposing, in cancer immunotherapy;
• Novel diagnostic or prognostic tools for cancer immunotherapy;
• Stromal–immune cell interactions driving tumor progression, immunoescape and resistance to immunotherapy;
• Epigenetics and immunotherapy;
• Marine drugs and phytochemicals able to potentiate the immune response against cancers.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Cancers.

Dr. Antonino Bruno
Dr. Barbara Bassani
Guest Editors

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• cancer immunotherapy
• innate immunity
• adaptive immunity
• tumor immune microenvironment
• tumor microenvironment
• combination therapies
• drug repurposing