Therapeutic vaccines against melanoma and colorectal cancer

Our overall strategy is to develop multivalent recombinant vaccines capable of eliciting broad immune responses in patients with malignant melanoma or colorectal cancer. We report herein results from initial studies conducted in cancer patients to evaluate the effect of intratumoral administration o f recombinant canarypox viruses carrying cytokine genes. Our current focus is on the induction of tumor-specific T-cell responses using a prime/boost immunization schedule with a unique vector system derived from the canary p ox virus called ALVAC, in which we incorporate genes encoding Tumor Associa ted Antigens (TAAs) of interest. Clinical studies in colorectal cancer eval uating an ALVAC CEA candidate vaccine have shown that this approach is safe and can induce tumor-specific T cell responses. Additional clinical studie s evaluating candidate vaccines against melanoma and colorectal cancer, tar geting either the gp100. Mage 1, Mage 3 or p53 molecules are ongoing, a 200 1 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.