A Nobel Prize-worthy pursuit: cancer immunology and harnessing immunity to tumour neoantigens

The field of cancer immunology stepped into the limelight this year when James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation. Among many exciting advances contributing to the coming of age of tumour immunology as a viable clinical specialty has been the ability to progress from the initial elucidation of tumour antigens, such as the melanoma antigen, MAGE-1, to high-throughput sequencing facilitating identification of T cell epitopes from diverse tumour neoantigens. This has resulted from the convergence of expertise in tumour biology, next-generation sequencing, T cell and structural immunology, and predictive algorithms. Among many examples, immunotherapy for ovarian cancer has been one of the beneficiaries of these advances, leading to a number of recent and ongoing clinical trials.