Formulation of peptide-based cancer vaccines

Abstract

This thesis describes the development and immunological evaluation of two different cancer vaccination strategies for peptide-based personalized cancer vaccines. Both strategies, liposomal encapsulation and adjuvanting by direct conjugation to a TLR-ligand, are aimed to be readily combined with neoantigen-containing synthetic peptide sequences. In order to formulate such personalized cancer vaccines a flexible platform is required that can harbor a wide range of physiochemically different SPs, because multiple neoepitopes are uniquely expressed per patient. Upon formulation, the vaccination platform should be able to induce effective tumor-specific immune responses, which was evaluated in this thesis in in vitro and in vivo preclinical models.