Training the immune system to track down cancer cells

How can we prevent cancer from returning after treatment? Prof. Dr. med. Juliane S. Walz, iFIT - Cluster of Excellence spokesperson and her team are developing therapeutic cancer vaccines designed to train the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells.
📰 In Münchner Merkur of September 21, 2026, Juliane Walz explains the principle with a vivid analogy: much like a search dog is trained to recognize a specific scent, the vaccine exposes the immune system to characteristic tumor peptides, enabling immune cells to identify and attack cancer cells.
👉 The next major step is approaching: ImmProCure, a clinical Phase II study for prostate cancer funded by the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), will investigate the combination of a multi-peptide vaccine with a bispecific PSMA×CD3 antibody, developed by iFIT member Prof. Dr. Helmut Salih and his research group at the University Hospital of Tübingen.
The randomized Phase II trial, planned to include 84 patients, is aimed at patients with a biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer following previous treatment.
💡ImmProCure is one of the first projects supported through the NCT’s Overarching Clinical Trial (OCT2) funding line and will receive more than €2 million in funding over four years.
🎯The aim is to generate a strong and long-lasting immune response against the cancer with only a small number of vaccinations.
👥The Münchner Merkur reports that participants are currently being recruited for the upcoming study. Further information is available from the CCU Translational Immunology at the Universitätsklinikum Tübingen.

📰 Read more in today’s Münchner Merkur (21 September 2026).