Tricking the tumour microenvironment into becoming our best rational drug design factory: reversal of immune suppression

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.