Back to the future: learning from cancer vaccine trials in Cardiff.

The early 1990s saw the first clinical testing of several therapeutic cancer vaccines. There was great optimism that these vaccines could be used as an alternative therapy for patients who had failed to respond to conventional cancer therapies. This article provides a personal perspective on the cancer vaccine field after being involved with a series of clinical trials in the United Kingdom (Cardiff) starting in the mid 1990s. It will also review the developments in technology and improved knowledge of the immune system that have informed the design of a new generation of cancer vaccine trials that will start in Cardiff in 2012.