Current Trends in Cancer Vaccines - a Bioinformatics Perspective

Abstract

Cancer vaccine development is in the process of becoming reality in future, due to successful phase II/IIIclinical trials. However, there are still problems due to the specificity of tumor antigens and weakness of tumorassociated antigens in eliciting an effective immune response. Computational models to assess the vaccine efficacyhave helped to improve and understand what is necessary for personalized treatment. Further research is neededto elucidate the mechanisms of activation of antigen specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes, decreased TREG numberfunctionality and antigen cascade, so that overall improvement in vaccine efficacy and disease free survival canbe attained. T cell epitomic based in sillico approaches might be very effective for the design and developmentof novel cancer vaccines.