Immunotherapies such as cancer vaccines have gained remarkable interest in developing novel treatment strategies for breast cancer; however, it still has its challenges regarding identifying targets and eliciting a sufficient immune response. Epigenetic therapy such as DNA methyltransferase inhibitors has recently been acknowledged for their potential in immunotherapy due to their ability to increase the availability of cancer-specific proteins which can be recognized by T cells of the immune system. These proteins create a tumor environment that supports T cells’ ability to kill cancer cells. Based on this we investigate if epigenetic therapy, which increases the production of the cancer-specific protein, in combination with vaccination, which increases the number of T cells targeting the cancer-specific protein, will be an effective strategy to treat breast cancer.
Master student, Josefine Bech Jensen, SDU