The third leading cause of cancer death in the world, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) - the most common form of liver cancer - is considered a big killer with around 800,000 deaths every year worldwide. The main risk factors are chronic infection with liver viruses B and C and chronic alcohol intake. So far, immunotherapeutic strategies - aimed at awakening the immune system against cancer - have not given the desired results. Starting from 2020 a new hope could come from two studies conducted by two young researchers from the research group of Luigi Buonaguro, head of the departmental structure of Tumor Immunoregulation of the Pascale Institute of Naples and international leader on the development of new immunotherapeutic strategies for the HCC
Studies on new immunotherapeutic combinations, Pascale announces, capable of simultaneously inducing an effective antitumor response and counterbalancing the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, by Mariella Tagliamonte, and on the identification of new molecular targets, in particular tumor-associated mutated neo-antigens , signed by Angela Mauriello, two world cancer journals with a very high impact have been published in Cancers and Cancer Letters.
Biologist with a specialization and doctorate in experimental medicine, forty-five years old, from Torre del Greco, Mariella Tagliamonte has been part of the Buonaguro working group for twenty years and has been working on liver cancer for ten years. Its stabilization at Pascale took place on 30 December last. Angela Mauriello, from Marano, biotechnologist, is only thirty years old, she has been working at Pascale for two years as a contractor after a degree in hepatocellular tumors.
