OnCo
technologiesTechnologyPhase 2

In situ vaccination

Treating one tumour so aggressively that the immune system learns to attack every other one, using the tumour itself as the vaccine.

Rather than manufacturing a vaccine, an injected adjuvant, virus, cytokine or ablative therapy turns a single lesion into an antigen source. Intratumoural TLR9 agonists with low-dose radiotherapy produced systemic responses in lymphoma, and oncolytic viruses, cryoablation, histotripsy and IL-12 electroporation all pursue the same idea. Systemic responses are real but modest and inconsistent, and the field lacks a way to predict who will respond.

Generic schematic · not to scale · placeholder for the immunotherapy front
PD-1 · PD-L1 · Blocking antibody · T cell, brake released

How it works

Local immunogenic cell death plus an adjuvant recruits antigen-presenting cells at the tumour, priming T cells against the patient's own full antigen repertoire.

Strengths
  • No manufacturing or antigen prediction needed
  • Covers the whole private antigen repertoire
  • Cheap and fast
Limitations
  • Abscopal responses are inconsistent
  • Needs an injectable lesion
  • No validated predictive biomarker

Latest papers

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Latest papers · live from Europe PMC
Open in Europe PMC

Query for this technology: (TITLE:"In situ vaccination" OR ABSTRACT:"In situ vaccination") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about In situ vaccination, not a curated reading list.

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