The immune system plays a pivotal role in recognizing and eliminating abnormal cells, including cancer cells. Tumour immunology investigates how cancer cells frequently evade immune surveillance and develop mechanisms to escape immune destruction. By understanding these mechanisms, researchers can help develop strategies to enhance the immune response against tumours, potentially leading to improved treatment outcomes. The potential to treat cancer using immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment in the last decade. Immunotherapy seeks to harness the body's immune system to target and eliminate cancer cells. An understanding of tumour immunology is essential for developing effective immunotherapeutic approaches, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, adoptive cell therapy, and cancer vaccines. These treatments leverage the knowledge of tumour immunology to stimulate or enhance the immune response against cancer cells. Tumour immunology research also helps identify predictive and prognostic biomarkers that can guide cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment decisions. Biomarkers such as programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression on tumour cells, presence of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes, or specific genetic signatures can indicate whether a patient is likely to respond to immunotherapy or to other treatments. Understanding tumour immunology helps identify these biomarkers and allow patient stratification and selection for immunotherapeutic interventions. Tumour immunology research also provides insights into the interactions between the immune system and other treatment modalities, facilitating the development of rational and effective combination therapies. This knowledge allows researchers to optimize treatment regimens and improve patient outcomes. Combination therapies that integrate multiple treatment modalities, such as targeted or untargeted chemotherapy or radiation, together with immunotherapy, have shown promising results in some cancer treatments. As with conventional treatments, cancer cells can unfortunately develop various mechanisms to evade immune responses, leading to treatment resistance. Knowledge of tumour immunology should then guide the development of strategies to overcome resistance and improve the durability and effectiveness of immunotherapeutic interventions. The immune system can detect and eliminate cancer cells before tumours arise by immunosurveillance. Aside from the presence of immune cells associated with the tumour microenvironment, evidence for immunosurveillance derives from the higher risk of developing certain types of cancer in individuals with weakened immune systems, such as organ transplant recipients or those with HIV/AIDS. Expression of tumour antigens in cancer cells likely drives most of the immune response to cancer cells in the tumour microenvironment. These antigens are expressed on the surface of tumour cells and be classified into two categories: tumour-specific antigens (TSAs) and tumour-associated antigens (TAAs). TSAs are unique to tumour cells, whilst TAAs are also present in normal cells but overexpressed or mutated in tumours. The melanoma-specific antigen 1 (MAGE-1) is an example of a TSA found in melanoma cells, whilst CEA (Carcinoembryonic Antigen) is an example of a TAA associated with colorectal, pancreatic, and lung cancers. Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are the immune cells that subsequently infiltrate the tumour microenvironment and include T cells, B cells, and NK cells. TILs play a crucial role in recognizing and potentially eliminating tumour cells. In some cases, the presence of TILs correlates with better prognosis. Thus, in colorectal cancer, the presence of high levels of CD8+ TILs are associated with improved patient survival. Finally, immune checkpoints are molecules that normally regulate the immune response, preventing excessive immune activation. Cancer cells exploit these immune checkpoints to evade immune surveillance. Checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) and anti-CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4) antibodies, block these inhibitory signals and enhance anti-tumour immune responses. Another promising approach uses CAR-T cell therapy where a patient's own T cells are engineered to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) targeting tumour antigens. CAR-T cell therapy has shown success in treating some haematological malignancies, such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We provide a comprehensive product range of research tools for studying tumor immunology, including CD31 antibodies, ErbB 2 antibodies, Interferon gamma antibodies, IL6 ELISA Kits, and IL10 ELISA Kits. Explore our full tumor immunology product range below and discover more, for less. Alternatively, you can explore our Tumor Associated Antigens, Cytokines, and CD Markers product ranges.