Dear Colleagues,

Immunotherapy is now a standard therapy in addition to surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy for treating cancer. Immune checkpoint blockades are a form of immunotherapy that have acceptable results in many types of tumors. However, it only works for around 20% of patients, as it depends on the immune cells already present in the tumor microenvironment. If these cells are lacking or exhausted, the treatment is not effective. Tumor vaccines can help by increasing the number of antitumor immune cells, including CD8 T cells and CD4 T cells. Peptide epitopes from tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) can be used to develop a tumor vaccine. In the past, vaccines using tumor-derived peptides and inadequate adjuvants (such as incomplete Freund’s adjuvant) failed to achieve clinical antitumor effects. However, with improvements in our understanding of the immune system, we can now use peptides, costimulatory molecules, and cytokines in combination with adequate adjuvants to expand T cells and impede the immune-suppressive environment. This Special Issue will gather the latest advances in the field of tumor immunology to optimize tumor vaccines.

This Special Issue aims to cover various topics related to immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Some of the potential areas include but are not limited to the following: developing immune adjuvants for a tumor vaccine; assessing the immunological aspects of the tumor microenvironment; exploring the benefits of combining immunotherapy with chemoradiotherapy; optimizing the administration route and formula for a tumor vaccine; studying the polarization of immune cells in immunotherapy; impeding immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment; and re-educating immune cells in the tumor microenvironment.

Dr. Takumi Kumai
Guest Editor

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• tumor vaccine
• immune adjuvants
• tumor immune environment
• peptide vaccine
• chemoradiotherapy
• cytokines
• suppressive immune cells
• checkpoint inhibitors