Peptide-Based Cancer Nanovaccines

Peptide-based cancer nanovaccines combine peptide vaccines with nanoparticles to improve delivery, and enhance the immune system’s response. These vaccines utilize short, mutated peptides known as neoantigens, which are unique to each patient's cancer, enabling more personalized and effective immunotherapy against tumor cells.

Our research project focuses on developing innovative cancer nanovaccines using neoantigens derived from mutated proteins within a patient's tumor tissues. We use and optimize existing neoantigen prediction tools to select the most effective neoantigen peptides. We also develop innovative nanocarriers to deliver these neoantigen peptides and adjuvants directly to antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, to effectively activate T-cells.

A key objective of our work is to establish reliable in vitro validation tools. These tools help to expedite the development of effective cancer nanovaccines and optimize the overall development workflow, ultimately shortening the time required to produce personalized vaccines for individual patients. The entire process, from neoantigen prediction to final validation, requires strong collaboration across various disciplines, including bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, peptide and material synthesis, and biology.