Applied cancer immunogenomics in glioblastoma

The use of novel immunotherapeutic agents in treating malignant brain tumors faces considerable challenges. Cancer immunogenomics represents a genomic framework for studying the dynamic interactions between the host immune system and tumor microenvironment. Characterization of the tumor-specific antigen landscape has already yielded a multitude of clinical trials testing personalized glioblastoma vaccines. Furthermore, significant advancements in high-throughput sequencing technologies and bioinformatic analyses have enabled high-resolution analysis of local and peripheral adaptive immune repertoires in the setting of central nervous system malignancies. These robust methods offer exciting new techniques for quantifying antitumor immune responses that can be harnessed as biomarkers for response to immune treatment or as a means to design cell therapy strategies. In the future, immunogenomic studies will be critical to understanding the genomic basis of immunotherapy response and resistance and to inform the next generation of immunotherapy trials.