The field of cancer immunotherapy seeks to harness and enhance the ability of the immune system to eliminate cancer. The application of immunotherapy has gained considerable interest in because of recent, unprecedented success in the treatment of human patients with lymphoma and melanoma. Immunotherapy holds similar promise for companion animals with cancer. The immune system can uniquely target cancer cells or the tumor environment while minimizing damage to normal tissues, and immune cells can reach locations that are otherwise inaccessible using conventional approaches. Additionally, immunological memory can provide long lasting, durable clinical responses."Cancer immunotherapy can generate anti-tumor immune responses through a variety of mechanisms. Passive immunotherapy involves the transfer of biological reagents, such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) or antigen-specific adaptive immune cells, into the cancer patient. Active immunotherapy seeks to elicit an anti-tumor response from the patient's own immune system, typically through vaccination." Here, we will focus on strategies that utilize adaptive immunity, and specifically discuss recent advances inveterinary cancer immunotherapy emphasizing technologies that originated from - or that are being developed at the University of Minnesota in collaboration with academic and industrial partners.
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