Editorial [Hot Topic: Pharmaceutical and Cellular Strategies of Recent Advances in Immunotherapy (Executive Editors: George Tuszynski and Mahesh Sharma)]

This issue summarizes the pharmaceutical and cellular strategies of recent advances in immunotherapy. The articles in this issue cover a broad range of topics including treatments of cancer and graft versus host disease, and HIV as well as immune modulators that can be developed for therapeutic vaccines. The article written by Gaurnier-Hausser and Tuszynski [1] describes an immunomodulatory role for angiocidin, a novel angiogenesis inhibitor. The authors describe how angiocidin can stimulate immune cells to present antigen. Experiments are shown that demonstrate the ability of angiocidin to differentiate peripheral blood monocytes into macrophage like cells that can function to present antigen and posses properties important in immune modulation. The authors further described novel pathways activated by angiocidin that stimulate production of molecules important in immune modulation. There data suggest that angiocidin could be used as an adjuvant for production of vaccines for diseases such as cancer, viral diseases, and arthritis. The article written by Keibel et al. [2] reviews advancements in clinical and epidemiological studies that have demonstrated a strong association between chronic inflammation and cancer. The authors show that proinflammatory cytokines, chemokines as well as adhesion molecules regulate the sequential recruitment of leukocytes frequently observed in the tumor microenvironment. These early desmoplastic changes could stimulate fibroblast and endothelial cells to produce molecular components for tissue remodeling and neovascularization which ultimately could promote the neoplastic process. In this review the current understanding of the role of chronic inflammation in neoangiogenesis, tumor initiation and promotion are presented. The article by Actor et al. [3] describes the natural immune modulation of lactoferrin, an iron binding glycoprotein. This molecule bridges innate and adaptive immune functions by regulating leukocyte response. It is a pleotropic molecule that directly assists antigen presenting cells and the development of T-helper cells. The review provides a comprehensive understanding of research regarding the role of lactoferrin in immune modulation as it relates to infectious disease, trauma and injury. The information presented in this review is highly relevant to the development of therapeutic interventions and vaccines.