The Department of Applied Tumor Biology (Medical Director: Prof. Magnus von Knebel Doeberitz, Deputy Director: Prof. Matthias Kloor) has pioneered research on the pathogenesis and immune biology of MSI cancers. Using a bioinformatics-based approach, ATB researchers identified the candidate driver genes with crucial importance for MSI cancer development and prepared the first-in-human vaccine against a non-viral human cancer. The idea of immunization with recurrent shared highly immunogenic cancer-specific neoantigens derived from frameshift peptides opened the possibility of tumor-preventive vaccines for Lynch syndrome carriers, representing a high-risk population with an inherited predisposition to develop MSI cancer. In close collaboration with Weill Cornell University (Steven Lipkin) and the NCI NIH (Shizuko Sei, Robert Shoemaker) ATB now pursues the goal of developing vaccines for cancer immunoprevention and immune interception in Lynch syndrome and beyond.
