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Review
. 2020 Apr 9;12(4):241.
doi: 10.3390/toxins12040241.

Talkin' Toxins: From Coley's to Modern Cancer Immunotherapy

Robert D Carlson  1 , John C Flickinger Jr  1 , Adam E Snook  1
Affiliations
Review

Talkin' Toxins: From Coley's to Modern Cancer Immunotherapy

Robert D Carlson et al. Toxins (Basel). .

Abstract

The ability of the immune system to precisely target and eliminate aberrant or infected cells has long been studied in the field of infectious diseases. Attempts to define and exploit these potent immunological processes in the fight against cancer has been a longstanding effort dating back over 100 years to when Dr. William Coley purposefully infected cancer patients with a cocktail of heat-killed bacteria to stimulate anti-cancer immune processes. Although the field of cancer immunotherapy has been dotted with skepticism at times, the success of immune checkpoint inhibitors and recent FDA approvals of autologous cell therapies have pivoted immunotherapy to center stage as one of the most promising strategies to treat cancer. This review aims to summarize historic milestones throughout the field of cancer immunotherapy as well as highlight current and promising immunotherapies in development.

Keywords: Coley’s Toxins; adoptive cell therapy; cancer; cytokine therapy; immune checkpoint inhibitors; immunotherapy; vaccine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Milestones in the History of Cancer Immunotherapy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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