Gene Therapy Strategies for Immunotherapy

Gene therapy has become increasing popular in the medical and scientific communities involved with developing strategies to enhance the innate immune system’s ability to eradicate tumors. This approach was introduced in early 2000s by Gordon & Hall when the first gene delivery system developed for in situ vaccination, Reximmune-C, an off-the shelf tumor targeted injectable retroviral vector expressing the GM-CSF gene, was shown to improve overall survival in solid and hematologic malignancies with 25% long term (>12 years) survival rate in chemo-resistant advanced chondroblastic osteosarcoma, B-cell lymphoma, and carcinoma of breast. Reximmune-C was given in a dual targeted approach with Rexin-G, a cytocidal tumor targeted retroviral vector encoding a CCNG1 inhibitor gene for destroying cancer cells and exposing tumor neoantigens to the innate immune system. Rexin-G received accelerated approval for all solid malignancies in 2007 in the Philippines. Since then, an oncolytic virus bearing a GM-CSF gene was approved for melanoma in 2018, followed by CAR-T cell therapies for hematologic malignancies.

Gene therapy is a promising approach for enhancing anti-tumor immunity by augmenting immune responses, reducing immune suppression, and precisely targeting cancer cells. While gene therapy strategies have been developed for hematologic malignancies such as leukemia and lymphoma, only one CAR-T cell therapy has been approved for solid tumors. Many challenges still remain but ongoing research and development are paving the way for more effective and widely applicable gene-based immunotherapies.

The goal of this Research Topic, “Gene Therapy Strategies for Immunotherapy”, is to raise awareness by peer review and publication of promising basic science, translational and clinical research on gene therapy strategies for immunotherapy of cancer. We welcome all types of manuscripts addressing gene therapy strategies for immunotherapy, including:

--Retroviral vectors
--Oncolytic viruses
--CAR-T cell therapy
--CAR-NK cell therapy
--NeoTCR-T cell therapy


Please note that Dr Erlinda Gordon is an equity member of Delta Next-Gene, LLC and Counterpoint Biomedica, LLC; Dr Robin Jones is associated with Adaptimmune, Astex and Athenex; Dr Sant P. Chawla is an equity member of Counterpoint Biomedica, LLC, AADi Bioscience, Inc., and IMMIX Biopharma, Celestia.

Also note that manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by robust and relevant validation (clinical cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: gene therapy, immunotherapy, viral vectors, oncolytic virus, CAR-T, CAR-NK, TCR therapy, cancer

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.