Monoclonal Antibodies Could Offer Immunity Against Cancer

In an article regarding the use of monoclonal antibodies in the therapies of cancer, Doctor Louis Weiner, a researcher at Georgetown University Medical Center’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center states that: “We believe that antibody therapy has the capacity to immunize people against cancer. Treatment modifications might be able to prolong, amplify, and shape a continuous immune response to cancer cells.”

Antibodies are an important part of the immune system; they are proteins that recognize and later neutralize foreign elements (viruses, bacteria). Monoclonal antibodies are lab-engineered proteins that serve the purpose of recognizing antigens on cancer cells, binding to cancer receptors and inhibiting their function, thus activating the immune system to their presence an they are used in drugs for the therapies of blood cancers (Rituxan®, Campath®), breast cancer (Herceptin®, Avastin®), colorectal cancer (Erbitux®, Avastin), and lung cancer (Avastin).

Regarding the use of monoclonal antibodies in the treatment of cancers, Weiner says: “For years it has been presumed that the ability of antibodies to interfere with malignant cell-related signaling is the dominant mechanism of anticancer activity, but we have also known that the normal job of an antibody is to deliver an antigen to the body’s immune system which then destroys the target.
We believe that Herceptin and Rituxan, as examples, work in part by immunizing people against cancer, but at this point, the magnitude of that response is variable and is frequently very small.
We have long thought that monoclonal antibodies are capable of stimulating the innate immune system, but we now have evidence that the therapy can prime an adaptive response as well. Such responses would make the treatment much more powerful, capable of keeping cancer under control.
For the first time we are using technology that can measure the immune response that is occurring in monoclonal antibody treatment, and which will help us build better antibodies that amplify and shape that immune response to become more powerful.”
He also foresees the possibility of creating antibodies for targets that might appear as the cancer mutates and that could be used to stop cancer expression in the organism.

The article, based on reviewing the last eight years of research on monoclonal antibody treatment, appeared in the March 21 issue of The Lancet written in collaboration with Madhav Dhodapkar, MD, of Yale University and Soldano Ferrone, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh.