Tumor Killing Assays

Our innate and adaptive immune system is equipped with a competent surveillance system to detect and eliminate tumor cells. Tumor cells can escape from this immune surveillance by immunoediting or immunosuppression. Thus, finding strategies to prevent tumors from escaping detection and elimination are of paramount importance.

Current immunotherapy approaches are aimed at modifying or enhancing immune cells with cytotoxic functions, such as CD8 T cells or natural killer (NK) cells. These cells often recognize and bind to tumor cells and effect tumor cell lysis through the release of cytotoxic proteases. Their activity can be enhanced by supplementing immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors, cytokines, and anti-tumor antibodies to induce antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC), or by genetically engineering to express chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) that are specific for a particular tumor type.