The treatment of diseases by inducing, enhancing, or surpressing an immune response is referred to as Immunotherapy. T-cell activation and inactivation requires the coordination of various co-inhibitory and co-stimulatory signals and most immunotherapies modulate these signals.
Therapeutic manipulation of immunopathways has lead to promising clinical results for the treatment of a number of diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases. Research in this field is rapidly evolving as scientists seek to identify the next generation of therapies.
In the first post of a series of three, I will describe the B7-1 : CD28 and B7-1 : CTLA4 pathways and summarize the portfolio of tools currently available to researchers to investigate these pathways. In fact, these are the first kits on the market to screen for inhibitors of these pathways.