I think any response to self would be attenuated fairly quickly. I could be wrong, but I believe what NWBO is hoping to "show" the immune system, in the tumor lysate, are tumor specific antigens.
Cancer cells escape the immune system by reducing/eliminating the MHC:peptide complex on their surface. In other words they don't broadcast to the T cells that they are "abnormal". Also, antigens taken up by dendritic cells and other antigen presenting cells will present the antigen to T cells in the absence of B7 ligands. That's because there are no signals (pro-inflamatory) to stimulate those ligands to appear on the surface of dendritic cells. What you end up with is MHC:antigen complex on a DC and no or not enough B7 ligands. When a T cell with the appropriate matching receptor finds that DC, it tolerizes the T cell. More ways the tumor screws with your defenses....
Tumors secrete factors that create a physical barrier. Tumors attract Tregs that then secrete factors (cytokines) that shut down CTLs and Th1 cells. And/or the tumor cells themselves secrete the factors that shut down the CTLs and Th1 cells. Also, when you have antibodies to a tumor antigen (probably early on in the disease) they cluster on the surface of the cells (bound to the antigen) and induce endocytosis of the antibody:antigen complex. Inside the cells the complexes are broken down and degraded. No more antigen on the surface...
The important thing to keep in mind is that tumor cells do make tumor specific antigens. Mutated oncogenes or tumor suppresor genes, proteins that are expressed outside of their normal location of expression, aberrant post-translation modifications (the protein is modified after it's made), and of course in some cases oncoviral proteins like in HPV.
Personally, I think that NWBOs technology is better suited as a complimentary therapy to another immunotherapy that disrupts one or more of these strategies that cancer cells utilize to circumvent the immune system. But maybe highly activated dendritic cells with and MHC:tumor specific antigen complex and buckets of B7 ligand can get the immune system to respond. I just don't hold the strong conviction of some that it's going to cure a person outright. My hope is to see an increase in PFS and maybe in some cases an increase in OS. Then maybe the therapy can be combined with other strategies. But that's my opinion and other people think differently...
