The potential of nanomaterials to activate the body's antitumor immune response investigated

The importance of research into the role of the immune system in the development and therapy of oncological diseases was emphasized by the Royal Swedish Academy, which recently named James Allison and Tasuku Honjo recipients of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for launching an effective new way to attack cancer by treating the immune system rather than the tumor. In recent decades, it has been proven that the effectiveness of existing anti-cancer therapy strategies (for example, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy) increases if the applied therapy leads to cell death through the pathway of immunogenic cell death (ICD), which is associated with the activation of the body's anti-tumor immune response, resulting in the most complete elimination of the tumor.