Edited by Neil S. Forbes and Grant McFadden
While microbial based therapy is one of the oldest cancer therapy modalities, dating from the 1880s, the field is not well-developed. Even after all this time, the cancer therapeutics potential of microbes has not been well-studied and has not materialized into treatments. This journal collection comes at a time in which new research tools and better knowledge of tumor biology and microbial virulence are available to lend new perspectives.
This collection describes the complex nature of the microbe-tumor interaction and discusses recent advances in the field that take advantage of the unique ability of microbes to invade human cells and induce immune responses in order to create therapeutic approaches that direct microbes to selectively target tumors. Including sections on microbe-tumor interactions, virus and bacteria-based therapies, this series also highlights opportunities for microbial based therapy where conventional therapy is inadequate.
We hope that these papers will stimulate more research interest in the field and unleash new tools based on microbial virulence against cancer.