Vaccines and active immunization against cancer

Immunotherapy is one of the most promising approaches to treat cancer. However, most cancers have low antigenicity and weak baseline immunity and thus remain insensitive to current immunotherapies (immunologically “cold” tumors). Cancer vaccines represent a promising strategy to activate immunity. Despite past poor clinical results, interest in cancer vaccines has reemerged after the discovery that neoantigens drive the efficacy of the most successful immunotherapies. In this chapter, we will discuss the challenges to vaccinate against tumors, the types of vaccine antigens, the advances in antigen delivery systems, and the current efforts in the clinic.