Cancer immunotherapies — drugs that work by making a patient’s immune system better at spotting and destroying tumor cells — are increasingly generating headlines. A number of these drugs are now being used for the treatment of melanoma, lung, and kidney cancers, and are showing promise in clinical trials with other diseases as well.
But creating drugs that manipulate the immune system presents unique challenges. With several experimental treatments, initial studies done in cells and animals produced encouraging results, yet the drugs didn’t work as hoped in clinical trials.
