{
  "abstract": "Almost every successful anticancer treatment has been preceded by preclinical scientific breakthroughs that encouraged clinical development. However, therapeutic strategies showing promising preclinical results often fail to confirm activity in clinical trials, particularly in immunotherapy. There are well-known inherent interspecies differences between human and rodent immunobiology. Moreover, human cancers progressively develop in nature over long periods, while preclinical models are deployed under controlled laboratory conditions. This translates into a suboptimal recapitulation of key features of human cancer, such as the marked interindividual differences, intercellular heterogeneity, and the immunoediting effects of chronic immunosurveillance. This review summarizes the current evidence of preclinical experimental models and research tools for cancer immunotherapy applications, with a focus on the incorporation of human sample-based methodologies, both ex vivo and in vivo using humanized mouse models. Methods to exploit highly valuable human specimens in preclinical research are called to bridge the gap between discovery observations in conventional mouse models and efficacy/safety tests in clinical trials. Novel immunotherapy agents and their combinations can be prioritized based on their effects on in vitro patient-derived tumor culture modalities or on as-perfect-as-feasible humanized mouse models bearing human tumor and immune cells. The ultimate goal is to reliably test immunotherapy interventions and reduce eventual clinical failures by means of preclinically prioritizing the best approaches.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immunology and Immunotherapy, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Centro de Investigacion Medica Aplicada, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "Department of Oncology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Cancer Center, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "IdiSNA, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Iñaki Eguren-Santamaria"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immunology and Immunotherapy, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Centro de Investigacion Medica Aplicada, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "IdiSNA, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "CIBERONC, Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain",
        "Immune Regulation and Immune Interactions Group, Centre for Immuno-Oncology, University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Ignacio Melero, PhD"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immunology and Immunotherapy, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Centro de Investigacion Medica Aplicada, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "IdiSNA, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Inmaculada Rodríguez"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Oncology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Cancer Center, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Ignacio Ortego"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immune Regulation and Immune Interactions Group, Centre for Immuno-Oncology, University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "María Armero"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immune Regulation and Immune Interactions Group, Centre for Immuno-Oncology, University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Felipe Galvez-Cancino"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Pathology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Cancer Center, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Alvaro López-Janeiro"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "IdiSNA, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "CIBERONC, Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain",
        "Department of Pathology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Cancer Center, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Carlos E De Andrea"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Immunology and Immunotherapy, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Centro de Investigacion Medica Aplicada, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "Department of Oncology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra Cancer Center, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "IdiSNA, Pamplona, Navarre, Spain",
        "CIBERONC, Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain"
      ],
      "name": "Miguel F Sanmamed"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Preclinical ex vivo and in vivo models to study immunotherapy agents and their combinations as predictive tools toward the clinic",
  "uid": "959cb967-1d54-5d83-aba4-14d8b9101d49"
}