Antibody Therapy

Antibody therapy has emerged as an important weapon in the anticancer armament. These therapies take advantage of their ability to target proteins uniquely expressed on the surface of cancer cells. A number of monoclonal antibodies, which target a specific tumor cell surface protein and in doing so result in cellular destruction, have been approved for clinical use, and many more continue to be developed. Expanding upon monoclonal antibody therapy are immunoconjugates, which deliver a therapeutic entity to the cancer cell with high precision by linking it to the antibody. Cancer antibody therapy may also target the immune system, preventing its natural downregulation and thus augmenting the body's natural immune response against the cancer. An important component of all of these therapies is the design of antibodies that specifically target specific cancer epitopes, and much of the ongoing research into cancer antibody therapy is focused on the engineering antibodies that bind with high specificity.