Developing neoantigen cancer vaccines: where are we now? (Nature Communications review)

This Nature Communications review summarises the state of personalised cancer vaccines that target neoantigens arising from a tumour's own somatic mutations. The authors recall that earlier vaccines aimed at tumour-associated antigens did not reliably produce tumour regressions, and that the advantage of neoantigens is escaping the central tolerance that limited them; progress was enabled by DNA sequencing and computational prediction of MHC-restricted neoantigens. Multiple clinical trials show promise but, as the authors put it, vaccine design, delivery and the choice of disease setting still require refinement. This is a review, not a trial readout, and it explicitly separates therapeutic vaccines from prophylactic vaccines against oncogenic viruses such as HPV.