Bioinformatics For Cancer Immunotherapy

This volume focuses on a variety of in silico protocols of the latest bioinformatics tools and computational pipelines developed for neo-antigen identification and immune cell analysis from high-throughput sequencing data for cancer immunotherapy. The chapters in this book cover topics that discuss the two emerging concepts in recognition of tumor cells using endogenous T cells: cancer vaccines against neo-antigens presented on HLA class I and II alleles, and checkpoint inhibitors. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and authoritative, Bioinformatics for Cancer Immunotherapy: Methods and Protocols is a valuable research tool for any scientist and researcher interested in learning more about this exciting and developing field.

"The development and application of bioinformatics tools to basic and translational cancer research is, in fact, a rapidly expanding field that deserves a timely review. Therefore, a publication of this type is needed. The editors have done an excellent job in recruiting well-established scientists to author the various chapters of the book." —Dieter Naf, Jackson Laboratory, USA Cancer bioinformatics is now emerging as a new interdisciplinary field, which is facilitating an unprecedented synthesis of knowledge arising from the life and clinical sciences. This groundbreaking title provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the enormous range of bioinformatics for cancer therapy development from the laboratory to clinical trials. It functions as a guide to integrated data exploitation and synergistic knowledge discovery, and support the consolidation of the interdisciplinary research community involved.

view, showing that multiple molecular pathways must be affected for cancer to develop, but with different specific proteins in each pathway mutated or differentially expressed in a given tumor (The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network 2008; Parsons et al. 2008). Different studies demonstrated that while widespread mutations exist in cancer, not all mutations drive cancer development (Lin et al. 2007). This suggests a need to target only a deleterious subset of aberrant proteins, since any tre- ment must aim to improve health to justify its potential side effects. Treatment for cancer must become highly individualized, focusing on the specific aberrant driver proteins in an individual. This drives a need for informatics in cancer far beyond the need in other diseases. For instance, routine treatment with statins has become widespread for minimizing heart disease, with most patients responding to standard doses (Wilt et al. 2004). In contrast, standard treatment for cancer must become tailored to the molecular phenotype of an individual tumor, with each patient receiving a different combination of therapeutics aimed at the specific aberrant proteins driving the cancer. Tracking the aberrations that drive cancers, identifying biomarkers unique to each individual for molecular-level di- nosis and treatment response, monitoring adverse events and complex dosing schedules, and providing annotated molecular data for ongoing research to improve treatments comprise a major biomedical informatics need.

Bioinformatics can be loosely defined as the collection, classification, storage, and analysis of biochemical and biological information using computers and mathematical algorithms. Bioinformatics represents a marriage of biology, medicine, computer science, physics, and mathematics, fields of study that have historically existed as mutually exclusive disciplines. Edited by Gavin Gordon, Bioinformatics in Cancer and Cancer Therapy, the focus of this book is to provide a historical and technical perspective on the analytical techniques, methodologies, and platforms used in bioinformatics experiments, to show how a bioinformatics approach has been used to characterize various cancer-related processes, and to demonstrate how a bioinformatics approach is being used to bridge basic science and the clinical arena to positively impact patient care and management.

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

Cancer Informatics in Post-Genomic Era provides both the necessary methodology and practical information tools for analyzing data in the field of medical information science. This, of course, requires analytic tools. Those tools are garnered by developing and assessing methods and systems for the acquisition, processing, and interpretation of patient data, aided by scientific discovery. Key challenges in this field include integrating research and clinical care, sharing data, and establishing partnerships within and across sectors of patient diagnosis and treatment.

The book introduces the bioinformatics tools, databases and strategies for the translational research, focuses on the biomarker discovery based on integrative data analysis and systems biological network reconstruction. With the coming of personal genomics era, the biomedical data will be accumulated fast and then it will become reality for the personalized and accurate diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of complex diseases. The book covers both state of the art of bioinformatics methodologies and the examples for the identification of simple or network biomarkers. In addition, bioinformatics software tools and scripts are provided to the practical application in the study of complex diseases. The present state, the future challenges and perspectives were discussed. The book is written for biologists, biomedical informatics scientists and clinicians, etc. Dr. Bairong Shen is Professor and Director of Center for Systems Biology, Soochow University; he is also Director of Taicang Center for Translational Bioinformatics.

This teaching monograph on systems approaches to cancer research and clinical applications provides a unique synthesis, by world-class scientists and doctors, of laboratory, computational, and clinical methods, thereby establishing the foundations for major advances not possible with current methods. Specifically, the book: 1) Sets the stage by describing the basis of systems biology and bioinformatics approaches, and the clinical background of cancer in a systems context; 2) Summarizes the laboratory, clinical, data systems analysis and bioinformatics tools, along with infrastructure and resources required; 3) Demonstrates the application of these tools to cancer research; 4) Extends these tools and methods to clinical diagnosis, drug development and treatment applications; and 5) Finishes by exploring longer term perspectives and providing conclusions. This book reviews the state-of-the-art, and goes beyond into new applications. It is written and highly referenced as a textbook and practical guide aimed at students, academics, doctors, clinicians, industrialists and managers in cancer research and therapeutic applications. Ideally, it will set the stage for integration of available knowledge to optimize communication between basic and clinical researchers involved in the ultimate fight against cancer, whatever the field of specific interest, whatever the area of activity within translational research.