Immunotherapy and The Regulatory Immune System in Blood Cancers: From Mechanisms to Clinical Applications

It is a time of great promise and expectation for the application of cancer immunotherapy, which is designed to harness the body's immune system to combat tumors. Clinical applications of immunotherapy include tumor vaccines, monoclonal antibodies that counteract the inhibitory signals of T-cells or enhance antigen presentation, and the ex vivo expansion or genetic engineering of T-cells (CAR-T and CAR-NK) to make them better suited to attack cancer cells and reject tumors. Although unwanted toxicities, resistance to therapy due to compensatory mechanisms, and the selection of the cancer types more likely to benefit from treatment still represent significant challenges, increasing numbers of clinical trials make a compelling case for the therapeutic potential of some immunotherapies to be unprecedented, both in terms of the frequency and duration of complete responses even in late stage disease. While the arsenal of immunotherapeutics are rapidly entering the clinic, there is also a growing interest in better harnessing the reach of immunotherapy by improving our understanding of the molecular and cellular networks that control tumor immunity across a broad spectrum of human cancer types, as well as mouse models of cancer.

We welcome contributions to this Research Topic that focus on lymphoma written by leading experts in the field of tumor immunology and immunotherapy, as well as clinical experts. The Topic provides a comprehensive overview of the progress made from understanding the mechanisms of cancer immunology to the most exciting clinical applications.

Suggested areas of focus include:

1. Cancer immunotherapy: vaccines, adoptive T-cell therapy, and immune-checkpoint blockades in malignant lymphoma
2. Macrophage-lymphocyte cross-talk in lymphoma cells and their response to chemotherapy
3. Cancer immunotherapy and the immune response in Hodgkin lymphoma
4. Myeloid cell biomarkers and the immune response to immunotherapy in acute myeloid leukemia
5. Immunosuppressive cell networks and biomarkers in malignant lymphoma
6. Microenvironment cell contribution to lymphoma immunity
7. Cancer immunotherapy and the immune response in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma
8. Genomic determinants of immunotherapy outcomes
9. Cancer immunotherapy and the immune response in EBV+ NK/T cell lymphoma
10. Clinical trials in malignant lymphoma with immune checkpoint inhibitors
11. Cancer immunotherapy and the immune response in follicular lymphoma
12. Cancer immunotherapy and the immune response in chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma