Genetic technologies for the discovery and verification of cancer immunotherapy biomarkers

Immuno-oncology (I-O) is the study of the ways in which body’s own immune system can be used to fight cancer. I-O research aims to develop cancer immunotherapies by enabling the adaptive immune system to recognize and specifically attack cancer cells while leaving healthy ones undamaged. I-O research can potentially uncover ways to enable immunogenicity of all types of cancer and facilitate long lasting, protective immunity against future recurrence. Immunotherapy is considered revolutionary in treating cancers and has become a standard of care along with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Although immunotherapies have shown tremendous success in treating cancers, response rate to these agents is low and often associated with side effects. It is therefore important to find biomarkers which would predict response to immunotherapy with minimal side effects. Biomarker discovery in the immunotherapy space is complicated by the complex interactions between tumors and the immune system and by host and tumor variability. Many bioinformatics tools and new genomic and proteomic technologies are required to predict specific tumor signatures.

In this presentation we discuss the genetic analysis research tools available from Applied Biosystems and Ion Torrent to study biomarkers associated with immune check point inhibitors, adoptive T-cell transfer, and therapeutic cancer vaccines.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.