The present invention is directed to methods and agents used for treating cancer or infectious diseases by providing toll-like receptors such as toll-like receptor 5 (TLR-5) in combination with providing a toll-like receptor agonists such as flagellin resulting in a cis and intrans effect that recruits cells involved in both the innate (cis effect) and adaptive (trans effect) immune response to specifically kill cancer cells and cells infected with a pathogen via the NF-KB apoptosis pathway
