Cancer Vaccines: Tumor Epitopes and Gene Therapy

Recent progress in our understanding of the molecular biology of the human immune system and the interplay of soluble growth factors, cytokines and lymphokines, to directly activate immune responses coupled with the molecular characterization of tumor antigens in several human cancers now provide for exciting new treatment approaches for cancer immunotherapy. Many groups are now focusing on overcoming the 4 weak tumor-associated’ immunity due to insufficient stimulation of helper T lymphocytes through approaches summarized in this chapter