So the immune system evolved a series of breaks (or checkpoint proteins) to help keep T-cells in check. If these checkpoint proteins become engaged, T-cells 'turn-off' and become less likely to attack a target cell.
In cancer, several things happen:
T-cells naturally get turned-off. A cell can only kill so many tumor cells before it becomes exhausted.
Cancer cells sometimes evolve the ability to trick the T-cells into turning themselves off.
So what these researchers discovered was some of the key proteins involved in turning the T-cells off (CTLA4 and PD1). More excitingly, they showed that inhibiting these proteins made the T-cells less likely to be turned-off, and enabled them to more effectively kill cancer cells.
The first immunotherapy drug in this class inhibited late-stage, aggressive CTLA4 - in melanoma it raised survival from close to zero to about 10-15%.
The next major innovation was anti-PD1 drugs. These drugs are racking up impressive clinical results so fast, it is hard to quantify just how good they are.
What does this mean for someone with HER2+ breast cancer?:
Immunotherapy has made less inroads into breast cancer, so far. It seems to work best on cancers with high mutation rates (lung cancer from smoking, melanoma from sun exposure etc.). But people are working hard to find ways to bring immunotherapy to the field - for example using antibodies that directly point the T-cells at the tumor cells.
Enpicom - Platform for personalizing immunotherapies.
Parker Institute - Brings together the field’s top scientists & clinicians to accelerate the development of breakthrough immunotherapies to turn cancer into a curable disease.