Immunological boot camp: firing up antitumor immunity

In the past few decades, researchers have discovered that each individual's tumor has unique antigen; therefore, to effectively combat cancer, treatments need to be highly personalized. Cancer cells have specific targets called neoantigens that are only found in tumor cells due to mutations. By identifying neoantigens from a patient's tumor, it is possible to create personalized neoantigen peptide cancer vaccines that educate the immune system to attack cancer cells. However, it's been a challenge to effectively deliver the peptides to immune cells and evoke sufficient immune reactions. To address this, I am developing an antibody-based vaccine carrier that can efficiently deliver peptides to specific immune cells while evoking enough immune responses in lymph nodes, which are a hub for immunity. By using an agonistic CD40 antibody, I aim to target and activate dendritic cells in the lymph node. This image represents the dye-conjugated CD40 antibody distribution in the mouse lymph node after the subcutaneous injection. We observed that the s.c. injected CD40 antibody (Green) rapidly moves into the nearest lymph node and binds to dendritic cells (Red). Further, we will load the antigenic peptide to the CD40 antibody carrier to test the cancer vaccine efficiency