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Ashdown. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2022;8:6 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2022.01
Metastasis and Treatment

Opinion Open Access

Tricking the tumour microenvironment into
becoming our best rational drug design factory:

reversal of immune suppression

Martin L. Ashdown
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3011, Australia.
Correspondence to: Martin L. Ashdown, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne 3011, Australia. E-mail: ashdownm@unimelb.edu.au

How to cite this article: Ashdown ML. Tricking the tumour microenvironment into becoming our best rational drug design
factory: reversal of immune suppression. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2022;8:6. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2022.01

Received: 4 Jan 2022 First Decision: 10 Feb 2022 Revised: 17 Feb 2022 Accepted: 21 Feb 2022 Published: 28 Feb 2022
Academic Editors: Lucio Miele, Steven Fiering Copy Editor: Xi-Jun Chen Production Editor: Xi-Jun Chen

Abstract
The immune cellular components of the tumour microenvironment are a diverse group of cells that paradoxically
are now appreciated to have a coordinated opposing duality of either promoting or retarding tumour growth.
Manipulating this seemingly dynamic interaction for therapeutic benefit is a hotbed of much research. Recent
findings in tumour immunology (both preclinical and clinical) build on more than a century of insights and provide a
way forward to improving patient outcomes, long term survival and the predictability of “cures”. This opinion piece
attempts to summarise some of these historical and contemporary insights with a view to describing eminently
testable therapeutic solutions.
Keywords: Tumour microenvironments, immune suppression, regulatory T cells, immune modulation, reversal,
plasticity, spatio-temporal

INTRODUCTION
In 1926, Morris Fishbein, MD, the editor of the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA),
wrote, “Cancers must be treated early, once a cancer has spread to surrounding tissue all attempts to halt the
[1]
disease are usually hopeless” .

© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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