DENDRITIC CELLS RESEARCH

Cancer derives from one (or just a few) normal cells that underwent malignant transformation, i.e. it is of monoclonal origin. Ever since 1950's it has been known that cancerous growth can stimulate immune response of the host. This was the basis of theory of immunosurveillance, proposed in early 1900's by P. Ehrlich and then developed by F. McFarlane Burnet (1960) and L. Thomas (1970), according to which the normal function of immune system is to recognize and destroy the cancerous cells, developing continuously by malignant transformation, before they can grow into tumors, or after they already formed tumors... Immunosurveillance for tumors is often ineffective, apparently because the immune responses to cancer are generally rather weak. The major effort of oncological immunology today is to find ways to augment the host immune response to cancer... Immunocytotherapy has increasingly been used in experimental and clinical oncology for patients unresponsive to the traditional..

Also known as: FCTI