eBook: Breakthroughs and Innovations in Immunology Research - 4

Advancing Immunology Research
to Leverage the Therapeutic
Potential of the Immune System
From autoimmune disease to cancer to type 1 diabetes,
the therapeutic potential of the immune system is unmatched.
Immunology is a complex and diverse field that
seeks to understand how the immune system
works and how we can leverage it to develop novel
therapeutic strategies. Diseases with an inappropriately
functioning immune system component
are as varied as the immunology field itself:
from autoimmune disease to cancer to type 1 diabetes,
the therapeutic potential of the immune
system is unmatched.
Generally, the study of the immune system can
be divided into two different focal areas: molecular
mechanisms and cellular mechanisms.1
But in
order to translate molecular and cellular-level understanding
into new therapeutic approaches, researchers
must be able to scale to the tissue and
even organ level.
A variety of different tools and technologies have
been developed to elucidate signaling pathways,
molecules, and cell-cell interactions that define
healthy and aberrant immune responses. 2D cell
cultures, organoids, organs-on-chip, and animal
models have all been developed and optimized to
enable researchers to gain new insights and understanding
into the inner workings of the immune
system. These insights have and continue to underpin
innovative therapies such as chimeric antigen
receptor (CAR) T-cells and more.
In this eBook, we explore two tools driving
immunology research forward, followed by a
discussion of exciting new advances in CAR cell
therapy development.
Bridging molecular and
cellular insights
To scale the discoveries made at the molecular and
cellular level and apply them at the tissue and organ
level-necessary for testing and advancing
immune therapies to the clinic-more complex
modeling systems are required than simple cell cultures.
Tissues and organs are complex assemblies
of numerous different cells into specific structures,
and this assembly depends on a series of molecular
signals driving cell differentiation and growth.
4
eBook: Breakthroughs and Innovations in Immunology Research

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of eBook: Breakthroughs and Innovations in Immunology Research
