The direct display of costimulatory proteins on tumor cells as a means of vaccination for cancer immunotherapy.

Therapeutic vaccines against cancer are at their prime, owing to our comprehensive understanding of immune effector responses generated against tumor and the mechanisms employed by the progressing tumor to evade the immune system. The immune system is primed by tumor-associated antigens (TAA) that are perceived as foreign. Therefore, the identification of TAA led to the development of subunit vaccine formulations comprising defined TAA as stand-alone vaccines or in combination with immune adjuvants.