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DNA Vaccines

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Cancer Therapeutic Targets

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Abstract

Immune based approaches to the treatment of cancer have demonstrated remarkable success in recent years. Many of these approaches, including T cell checkpoint inhibitors and adoptive T cell therapies, aim to amplify or modify the function of lymphocytes specific for tumor cells. Given this success, there has been renewed interest in the use of active immunotherapies, or vaccines, to generate and/or amplify tumor target-specific immunity, as these types of treatments are well poised to combine with other immune modulating therapies. While many anti-tumor vaccine approaches are being investigated, DNA vaccines offer particular advantages in terms of ease and cost of manufacturing, stability, and absence of infectious components. DNA vaccines have been approved as therapies for non-human diseases, including canine melanoma. However, early clinical trials in human patients were disappointing, with limited clinical responses. Since those initial studies many advances have been made in regards to the delivery and efficacy of DNA vaccines, seeking to enhance their therapeutic efficacy. Second generation vaccines are now undergoing clinical evaluation targeting a variety of antigens and in a variety of different approaches. We review here this approach specifically as an anti-cancer therapy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 7030 Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, 1111 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI, 53705, USA

    Eric S. Bradley

  2. Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, 1111 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI, 53705, USA

    Douglas G. McNeel

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  1. Eric S. Bradley
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  2. Douglas G. McNeel
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Correspondence to Douglas G. McNeel .

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  1. Division of Hematology & Oncology, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    John L. Marshall

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Bradley, E.S., McNeel, D.G. (2017). DNA Vaccines. In: Marshall, J. (eds) Cancer Therapeutic Targets. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0717-2_130

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