Cancer Vaccines: The Molecular Basis for T Cell Killing of Tumor Cells

This issue of The Oncologist provides the reader with two important reviews on the subject of cancer vaccines. In these reviews, the authors address the rationale and biology supporting the use of immune-response enhancing cancer vaccines in human clinical trials. Although the titles of the manuscripts are similar, the subject is large and these two well-known research groups provide unique perspectives with little overlap of content. As with so many areas of human biology and disease, the field of tumor immunology has benefitted tremendously by the application of molecular genetic technologies to the study of the critical mechanisms of antigen recognition, antigen processing and effector cell generation. This progress in elucidating the molecular events operative in the generation of an anti-tumor response justifies the translation of the many animal models of tumor vaccine therapy into clinical trials, especially for those tumors known to be unusually susceptible to immunotherapy.