Cancer is defined as a disease whereby abnormal cells divide without control and are able to spread to other tissues. During normal cell division, sometimes the genetic material, known as DNA, within a cell can become damaged or mutated resulting in uncontrolled cell growth. The immune system is responsible for surveillance of “foreign or non-normal cells”, however, targeting cancer cells can be difficult as the immune system does not always recognise cancer cells as foreign, and the cancer can over express certain immune-related targets that hide the cell from the immune system. The cancer grows unchecked continuously evolving, acquiring more and different mutations. Targeting these mutations or immune-related targets has improved the overall survival time for a subset of patients. However, not all patients respond to the treatment and for those that do, a significant number will experience recurrence and resistance to treatment within a few months. However, there are a small set of patients who have had exceptional responses to treatment atypical of their disease. This study sets out to discover the molecular and immune properties that cause tumours to respond or not to treatment.
