Volume 1: Strategies for Therapeutic Cancer Vaccine Development deals with different strategies of cancer vaccine development, focusing on techniques for the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines and the roles of tumor antigens, proteins/peptides, microbial genes, and stem cells for the development of vaccines for cancer management. Volume 2: Delivery Strategies for Cancer Vaccine and Immunotherapy in Management of Various Carcinomas covers delivery strategies of cancer vaccines for the management of various forms of carcinoma, examining the prospects of delivering immuno-oncology therapies, focusing specifically on the effective drug delivery strategies for treatment of lung, prostate, and pancreatic carcinomas.

This book analyzes all aspects of metronomic chemotherapy, a new approach involving low-dose, long-term, and frequently administered therapy that has preclinical and clinical activity in various tumors. After an opening section on the pharmacological bases of metronomic chemotherapy, including its antiangiogenic effects and impact on immunity, preclinical studies on various classes of drug are discussed. Clinical applications of metronomic chemotherapy in a wide variety of tumors are then addressed in detail, with description of the results of all published studies. The clinical pharmacology of metronomic chemotherapy is also considered in depth, encompassing pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenetics, pharmacoeconomics, and adverse drug reactions. The book closes by describing the role of this therapy in the veterinarian clinic.

This volume explores the various methods used to study tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) in pathological situations. Pre-clinical models are also discussed in detail to show how TLS structure, development, and maintenance can be targeted and studied in vivo. The chapters in this book cover topics such as humans and mice; strategies to quantify TLS in order to use it in stained tissue sections; classifying a gene signature form fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues; and development of murine inflammatory models to help look at TLS in the context of infection or malignancy. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and thorough, Tertiary Lymphoid Structures: Methods and Protocols is a valuable resource that increases the reader’s knowledge on immune functions and how they will pave the way to future therapeutic applications.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a critical role in tumor proliferation, progression, and therapeutic responses. TME is a complex network of cancer cells, stromal cells, and, most importantly, infiltrating immune cells. Cancer cells regulate numerous biological functions through direct or indirect interaction with TME components. Emerging evidence suggests that TME crucially influences the response to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy. As scientific research has entered the big data era with the fast development of high-throughput sequencing technologies, machine learning has been gradually widely applied to extract important knowledge from big data bioinformatics. Thus, characterizing the TME landscape in cancer and identifying different immune-related TME phenotypes using machine learning-based bioinformatics analyses, in vitro experiments, and in vivo experiments are of great interest and significance.

Over the past decade, significant efforts have been made to develop stem cell-based therapies for difficult to treat diseases. Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells, also referred to as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), appear to hold great promise in regards to a regenerative cell-based therapy for the treatment of these diseases. Currently, more than 200 clinical trials are underway worldwide exploring the use of MSCs for the treatment of a wide range of disorders including bone, cartilage and tendon damage, myocardial infarction, graft-versus-host disease, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, critical limb ischemia and many others. MSCs were first identified by Friendenstein and colleagues as an adherent stromal cell population within the bone marrow with the ability to form clonogenic colonies in vitro. In regards to the basic biology associated with MSCs, there has been tremendous progress towards understanding this cell population’s phenotype and function from a range of tissue sources. Despite enormous progress and an overall increased understanding of MSCs at the molecular and cellular level, several critical questions remain to be answered in regards to the use of these cells in therapeutic applications. Clinically, both autologous and allogenic approaches for the transplantation of MSCs are being explored. Several of the processing steps needed for the clinical application of MSCs, including isolation from various tissues, scalable in vitro expansion, cell banking, dose preparation, quality control parameters, delivery methods and numerous others are being extensively studied. Despite a significant number of ongoing clinical trials, none of the current therapeutic approaches have, at this point, become a standard of care treatment. Although exceptionally promising, the clinical translation of MSC-based therapies is still a work in progress. The extensive number of ongoing clinical trials is expected to provide a clearer path forward for the realization and implementation of MSCs in regenerative medicine. Towards this end, reviews of current clinical trial results and discussions of relevant topics association with the clinical application of MSCs are compiled in this book from some of the leading researchers in this exciting and rapidly advancing field. Although not absolutely all-inclusive, we hope the chapters within this book can promote and enable a better understanding of the translation of MSCs from bench-to-bedside and inspire researchers to further explore this promising and quickly evolving field.

With their unprecedented success, cancer immunotherapies including immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapy (ATC), and immunomodulators are being increasingly used for various malignancies. Distinct from traditional treatments including surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, immunotherapeutics attempt to create long-lasting anti-tumor effects. However, only a minority of patients experience long-term benefits to single-agent immunotherapy, and most patients do not have initial responses to the immunotherapy or develop relapse after promising initial responses. Strategies to overcome immunotherapy resistance include (1) the development of biomarkers to select potential responders and/or exclude potential non-responders; and (2) the usage of combination treatments (ICIs, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, vaccines, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and etc.) comprising different mechanisms of action and target multiple resistant mechanisms. At the same time, the possibility of new side effects due to the combinatorial strategies or the potential amplification of the well-known side effects of the ICIs, termed immune-related adverse events (irAEs), should be carefully monitored.