Personalized Oncology Meets Immunology: The Path toward Precision Immunotherapy

Personalized oncology aims to tailor therapy by targeting the unique genetic characteristics of a patient's tumor, whereas cancer immunotherapy focuses on activating the patient's immune system to control the tumor. The fusion of these ostensibly separate strategies has created a new dimension for personalized cancer immunotherapy. This entails the development of next-generation cancer vaccines that target neoantigens as well as the use of mutational signatures as predictive biomarkers for clinical response. The optimal use of immunotherapeutic agents will hinge on a robust understanding of the mutational profi le of a cancer's genome that significantly dictates antitumor immunity and immunotherapeutic response. Significance: Cancer immunotherapy has provided substantial clinical benefit in a signifi cant number of patients with advanced disease. However, the need for more precise immunotherapies and predictive biomarkers remains pressing. Recent progress in these areas has been promising and has created a framework for precision immuneoncology.(C) 2016 AACR.