New rules for anticancer vaccines
As cancer cells divide, they accumulate random mistakes (mutations). This process creates new versions of proteins, some of which are recognized as foreign invaders by immune cells called T cells, prompting the cells to attack and eliminate the cancer cells. With our current ability to identify all of the mutations in a patient’s cancer and to understand which protein sequences can be recognized by T cells, scientists can now predict which mutations will result in new T cell targets (called “neoepitopes”)…