Abstract

Therapeutic vaccines derived from carbohydrate antigen–adjuvant combinations are a promising approach for cancer immunotherapy. One of the critical limitations in this area is access to sufficient quantities of tumour-associated carbohydrate antigens and glycoconjugate adjuvants. At present, availability of the complex oligosaccharide constructs that are needed for the systematic design and evaluation of novel vaccine formulations relies on de novo chemical synthesis. The use of both state-of-the-art and emerging glycosylation technologies has led to significant advances in this field, allowing the clinical exploration of carbohydrate-based antigens in the treatment of cancer.

1. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
2. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA.

Correspondence to: the authors (Email: gind@mskcc.org; Email: danica_galonic@hms.harvard.edu).
Reprints and permissions information is available at http://npg.nature.com/reprints/index.html

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.