title: On immunotherapies and cancer vaccination protocols: a mathematical modelling approach.
abstract: In this paper we develop a new mathematical model of immunotherapy and cancer vaccination, focusing on the role of antigen presentation and co-stimulatory signaling pathways in cancer immunology. We investigate the effect of different cancer vaccination protocols on the well-documented phenomena of cancer dormancy and recurrence, and we provide a possible explanation of why adoptive (i.e. passive) immunotherapy protocols can sometimes actually promote tumour growth instead of inhibiting it (a phenomenon called immunostimulation), as opposed to active vaccination protocols based on tumour-antigen pulsed dendritic cells. Significantly, the results of our computational simulations suggest that elevated numbers of professional antigen presenting cells correlate well with prolonged time periods of cancer dormancy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
authors.forename: Badal
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Xueying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Sayanti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banerjee
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Anastasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Matzavinos
authors.forename: Mark A J
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Chaplain
mesh_terms: D017951:Antigen Presentation / Q000276:immunology; D000938:Antigen-Presenting Cells / Q000276:immunology; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000276:immunology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D018448:Models, Immunological; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D012008:Recurrence; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines