Cancer immunotherapy
Having-developed an unique expertise in immunology and vaccines against infectious diseases, GSK is now focusing on the need for new cancer treatments. Major advances have been made over recent years in our understanding of the immune system and its potential role in treating cancer.
For example, we know now that, in healthy people, the body’s defenses against invading germs like bacteria and viruses may also protect against cancer . These defenses are known as the immune system.
The immune system
Invading germs and abnormal cells such as cancer cells are identified by the immune system as ‘non-self’ or ‘foreign’. Even though they originate in the body, cancer cells are recognized in this way because they are different to normal body cells. The immune system then produces substances called antibodies, and these recognize and bind to molecules called antigens located on the surface of the invaders or abnormal cells. Specialized immune cells then come along and destroy the antibody-bound cells before an infection or a cancer can develop.
In people who develop cancer, the immune system has either failed to recognize cancer cells or failed to destroy them. This may be because some cancers have developed ways of avoiding the immune system
Cancer immunotherapy
Cancer immunotherapy is a term that includes different strategies to trigger an immune response towards cancer cells, or to enhance the initial immune response. The aim is to make the immune system more effective in detecting abnormal cells and more effective in destroying them. The field of immunotherapy is not new, but after 20 years of intensive research it is beginning to demonstrate encouraging results.
Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutics or ASCI is the GSK approach to immunotherapy. It aims to treat cancer by targeting antigens that are selectively expressed by cancer cells but not (or only at low levels) by normal cells.