Cancer Vaccines

Cancer vaccines are a promising approach in immune oncology, aiming to both stimulate immunity against cancer, while targeting adaptive immunity at critical oncologic targets. Unlike traditional vaccines that prevent infectious diseases, cancer vaccines are generally utilized to treat existing cancers or prevent cancer recurrence/resistance. Cancer vaccines stimulate innate immune response, thereby triggering adaptive immunity to recognize specific antigen expressed by cancer cells, as a means to target these cells. While some cancer vaccines use a patient’s own cells or proteins to train the immune system, our group has used a variety of genetically engineered viruses as cancer vaccines. In our clinical trials and those of others, cancer vaccines have shown remarkable potential, offering a more targeted and potentially less toxic alternative to conventional treatments like chemotherapy or radiation therapy. However, significant challenges remain, including the impact of immune tolerance, the highly immune suppressive nature of advanced cancers, as well as the variability of individual immune responses, necessitating additional ongoing research and development to optimize their effectiveness.

In our laboratory, we are currently exploring the potential of different kinds of vaccine platforms in isolation or combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor and agonist agents to enhance their therapeutic efficacy against a variety of cancers.