New Test To Predict The Effectiveness Of Cancer Vaccines

Cancer vaccines are designed to turn the body's own immune system specifically against tumor cells. Particularly promising are vaccines that are directed against so-called neoantigens: These are proteins that have undergone a genetic mutation in tumor cells and, therefore, differ from their counterparts in healthy cells. The tiny alteration - sometimes only a single protein building block has been changed - gives the protein on the tumor cell surface novel immunological characteristics that can be recognized as "foreign" by the immune system's T cells. Therapeutic vaccines using a short protein fragment, or peptide, specifically containing the mutated site can then direct immune cells specifically to the tumor. read more

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