Cancer Vaccines
Therapeutic cancer vaccines teach the immune system to recognize tumour antigens — from BCG and sipuleucel-T to individualized mRNA vaccines now in phase 3 trials.
Latest vaccine news
First successful phase 3 trial of a personalised mRNA cancer vaccine in melanoma (INTerpath-001)
The phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival (RFS) and the key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) in 1,137 patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV cutaneous melanoma, randomised 2:1 to the personalised mRNA vaccine intismeran …
Read the full story →TG4050 neoantigen vaccine as adjuvant treatment in head and neck cancer: no relapses among 16 vaccinated patients in a randomised phase 1 trial
In a randomised phase 1 trial (NCT04183166), patients with completely resected head and neck squamous cell carcinoma received TG4050, an individually designed vaccine on a Modified Vaccinia Ankara viral vector encoding up to 30 predicted patient-specific neoantigens. In the arm vaccinated immediatel…
Read the full story →Generative AI in neoantigen cancer vaccine design — a review of promise and limits
A review published in Biotechnology Advances (1 September 2026) sets out where generative models can assist in designing therapeutic neoantigen cancer vaccines: tumour antigen discovery, ranking candidates by predicted immunogenicity, and assembling multi-epitope constructs. The authors also state w…
Read the full story →The Moderna cancer vaccine offers hope — now we must speed up personalized therapies
A positive clinical trial of Moderna's personalized mRNA cancer vaccine (mRNA-4157/V940, in combination with pembrolizumab) has demonstrated promising results in treating cancer, reinforcing the therapeutic potential of individualized neoantigen vaccines. Nature's editorial emphasizes that while the…
Read the full story →Moderna's personalised mRNA vaccine and melanoma recurrence: what the phase 2b trial actually showed, and what comes next
The personalised mRNA-4157 (V940) vaccine combined with pembrolizumab after complete resection of melanoma prolonged recurrence-free survival compared with pembrolizumab alone in the randomised phase 2b KEYNOTE-942 trial (Lancet 2024, n=157: 107 vs 50 patients). At 18 months, 79% of patients in the …
Read the full story →Phase 1 vaccine against mutant KRAS produced a T-cell response in 18 of 20 people at hereditary risk of pancreatic cancer
In a first-in-human phase I trial, the peptide vaccine mKRAS-VAX induced a mutant-KRAS-specific T cell response in 18 of 20 individuals (90%) with hereditary predisposition to pancreatic cancer, and the vaccine-induced clonotypes persisted for up to 2 years; the trial was single-arm and assessed saf…
Read the full story →pTVG-HP DNA vaccine in PSA-recurrent prostate cancer: median survival 13.4 vs 8.6 years in long-term analysis of a randomized phase 2 trial
In a randomized phase 2 trial (NCT01341652), the pTVG-HP DNA vaccine encoding prostatic acid phosphatase was associated with a median overall survival of 13.4 years versus 8.6 years with placebo (48 vs 49 patients, HR 0.42; 95% CI, 0.20-0.90) in men with PSA-recurrent, non-metastatic, non-castrate p…
Read the full story →Intismeran Autogene Plus Pembrolizumab Versus Pembrolizumab Alone in High-Risk Resected Melanoma: 5-Year Update of the Randomized Phase IIb KEYNOTE-942 Study
The 5-year update of the randomized phase IIb KEYNOTE-942 study reports long-term outcomes for the individualized mRNA neoantigen vaccine intismeran autogene (mRNA-4157/V940) combined with pembrolizumab versus pembrolizumab alone in patients with completely resected high-risk melanoma. Earlier reado…
Read the full story →A decade of therapeutic cancer vaccines in solid tumours: analysis of 86 clinical trials — 53% disease control, 18% objective responses
An analysis of 86 clinical trials published between 2015 and 2025, covering therapeutic cancer vaccines across all platforms (mRNA, DNA, peptide, dendritic cell, viral vector and whole tumour cell), gives the soberest picture of the field to date. Among 1588 patients with advanced disease the diseas…
Read the full story →Six-year follow-up of a personalised mRNA vaccine in pancreatic cancer: 7 of 8 immune responders alive (phase 1, 16 patients)
In a phase 1 trial of autogene cevumeran — a personalised mRNA vaccine given after resection of pancreatic cancer — 8 of 16 patients mounted a tumour-specific immune response. After 4-6 years of follow-up, 7 of those 8 were alive, compared with 2 of 8 non-responders (median survival 3.4 years). The …
Read the full story →Latest vaccine research
A Self-Adjuvant Photothermal Carbon Dot-Based Nanovaccine for Multimodal Nasopharyngeal Cancer Treatment and Prophylaxis.
Ji R, et al
Researchers have engineered a biomimetic nanovaccine, CDC/Toy@CCM, consisting of toyocamycin-loaded, redox-responsive carbon dot clusters coated with homologous cancer cell membranes, that simultaneously treats and prevents nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) by integrating photothermal therapy, chemothe…
Source →Synthetic long peptide and DNA personalized cancer vaccines induce robust neoantigen-specific T cell responses in pancreatic cancer
Two phase 1 trials (NCT03956056, NCT03122106) tested personalized neoantigen vaccines — synthetic long peptide and DNA — given after resection and adjuvant chemotherapy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The vaccines were well tolerated, with no grade 3 or higher adverse events, and induced polycl…
Source →Immune checkpoint inhibition plus Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) therapy in BCG-naive high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer: a critical review in the context of current evidence
Gakis G, et al
A critical review of three phase III trials found that adding immune checkpoint inhibitors to a full 2-year BCG maintenance schedule significantly reduced recurrence in high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), with the CREST (sasanlimab) and POTOMAC (durvalumab) trials each achieving a …
Source →Computationally guided multi-epitope vaccine design targeting oncoprotein BZLF1, EBNA1, LMP1, and LMP2 for of EBV associated gastric cancer.
Delonio E, et al
Researchers have computationally designed a multi-epitope vaccine candidate targeting four key Epstein-Barr virus oncoproteins — BZLF1, EBNA1, LMP1, and LMP2 — implicated in EBV-associated gastric cancer, with the final 1,091-amino-acid construct achieving an estimated global population coverage of …
Source →Clinical translation of mRNA-based cancer vaccines for solid tumors.
AlKhafaje Z, et al
A review synthesizing evidence from 65 registered clinical trials reports that mRNA-based cancer vaccines can elicit durable T-cell responses, expand high-avidity T-cell clones, and in some cases prolong recurrence-free survival in patients with solid tumors including renal cell carcinoma, melanoma,…
Source →A phase II multi-institutional single arm trial evaluating TG4010 vaccine plus nivolumab in non-small cell lung cancer.
Wang CX, et al
A phase II clinical trial combining the TG4010 MUC1 therapeutic cancer vaccine with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab showed limited benefit in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with only 1 of 12 (8.3%) evaluable patients achieving a response and a median overall survival of 7.23 months. T…
Source →Dendritic cell-based vaccines for colorectal cancer: mechanisms, clinical progress and future directions
Pong LY, et al
This review summarizes the state of therapeutic vaccines based on autologous dendritic cells in colorectal cancer. The principle is to prime the patient's own immune system to recognize tumour antigens and mount an adaptive T-cell response. The authors state that the safety and effectiveness of dend…
Source →Translational Challenges and Opportunities in mRNA Cancer Vaccines
Seong Dong Jeong
This Cancer Discovery mini-review takes stock of therapeutic mRNA cancer vaccines. Personalised platforms (mRNA-4157, BNT122) are feasible and safe and produce durable immune activity, but scale poorly; off-the-shelf constructs (BNT111, BNT113) deploy faster and more broadly at the cost of precision…
Source →Intravesical gemcitabine versus Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) for intermediate-/high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer during the BCG shortage: Safety, efficacy, and health-economic context.
Costa TM, et al
A prospective observational study of 128 patients found that intravesical gemcitabine (GEM) is significantly less effective than Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (Onco-BCG) at preventing bladder cancer recurrence, with recurrence occurring in 34.8% of GEM patients versus 16.1% of BCG patients and median rec…
Source →Mechanistic biomarkers for cancer vaccine development: from cancer cell biology to neoantigen-guided precision immunotherapy.
Rusciano D
A comprehensive review published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology concludes that cancer vaccines are unlikely to become universal stand-alone treatments for advanced solid tumors, but hold their most credible clinical promise in molecularly selected patients, adjuvant settings, minimal…
Source →This page is educational — it is not medical advice and does not replace consultation with an oncologist. Diagnostic and treatment decisions are made solely by specialist physicians.