Stefani Spranger on What Every Oncologist Should Know About Immunotherapy

Stefani Spranger, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, Cancer Research Institute at The University of Chicago, discusses the basic knowledge all oncologists should have regarding immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy actives the immune system to recognize and then destroy the cancer, says Spranger. The main players in this recognition are CD8-positive T cells. These are the T cells in viral infections that are responsible for killing the infected cells.

With cancer, because the body’s own cells are attacking it, the CD8-positive T cells do not know to fight it. Immunotherapy educates the immune system to do this and could possibility be used to fight most of the cancers that are currently out there, says Spanger.