Institute of Immunology
Research Group
Immune Monitoring

Human malignancies frequently elicit adaptive immune responses in patients. The clinical success of immune checkpoint modulation demonstrates how powerful our immune system is (T cells in particular) in controlling and eradicating tumors, even at an advanced stage of disease. However, only a fraction of patients responds durably to checkpoint blockade, and others, possibly combined strategies are being actively pursued. One of the strategies that we are especially interested in is peptide-based vaccination. Although therapeutic cancer vaccines have shown limited clinical efficacy so far, our understanding of tumor antigens, adjuvants and on the interplay between human tumors and the immune system has increased considerably in the last years. We are now in the position to implement this knowledge into the design of more powerful vaccines and of therapy combinations in order to increase vaccine immunogenicity and counter-attack tumor-induced immunosuppression.