What is ACI?

Active cellular immunotherapy (ACI) is a treatment approach that capitalizes on the power of live human cells to re-engage the patient's own immune system to fight cancer.

Goals and challenges for active cellular immunotherapy

Activated T cells may be the immune system's most potent
defense against cancer
Although a variety of immune cells participate in the surveillance and elimination of cancer cells, T cells are uniquely endowed to kill specific tumor cell types. When activated to recognize tumor-associated antigens, T cells proliferate and destroy cells bearing those antigens.¹ For this reason, the goal of many investigational ACIs is to stimulate and optimize activation of T cells.²

Cancer's self-protecting mechanisms inhibit normal immune processes
Cancer cells have immunoevasive mechanisms that enable them to thrive. Tumor cells that contain "self" antigens can avoid detection more easily. But cancers also interfere with immune processes more directly, by down-modulating antigen processing, inhibiting T cell activation, and employing other immunosuppressive defenses.⁶

Strategies for inducing T cell mediated responses
In order to evoke strong T cell responses, immunotherapies have several mechanistic objectives. They must:

• Present tumor-associated antigens to T cells in sufficient levels
• Present the antigens in a highly orchestrated fashion²
• Overcome tumors' immunosuppressive mechanisms

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