Adjuvants for human and veterinary therapeutic vaccines
Despite several attempts to develop vaccines for cancer therapy, therapeutic vaccines have not yet seen widespread use. Poor immunogenicity of tumor antigens and the immune-compromised status of patients strongly argue in favour of using novel adjuvants, which can modulate the required range of immune responses needed to control and eradicate tumors. One challenge with adjuvants for cancer therapy is that ideally strong inducers of IFN-I and Th1-type responses would be employed to support CTL function. The systemic application of adjuvants / TLR agonists that support this type of response is however problematic and TLR agonists such as imiquimod are currently only able to be used topically.