During the past 2 decades, the possibility that preparations capable of eliciting
tumor-specific immune responses would mediate robust
therapeutic effects in
cancer patients has received renovated interest. In this context, several approaches to vaccinate
cancer patients against their own
malignancies have been conceived, including the administration of
DNA constructs coding for one or more
tumor-associated
antigens (TAAs). Such
DNA-based
vaccines conceptually differ from other types of gene therapy in that they are not devised to directly kill
cancer cells or sensitize them to the cytotoxic activity of a
drug, but rather to elicit a
tumor-specific immune response. In spite of an intense wave of preclinical development, the introduction of this immunotherapeutic paradigm into the clinical practice is facing difficulties. Indeed, while most
DNA-based anticancer
vaccines are well tolerated by
cancer patients, they often fail to generate therapeutically relevant clinical responses. In this Trial Watch, we discuss the latest advances on the use of
DNA-based
vaccines in
cancer therapy, discussing the literature that has been produced around this topic during the last 13 months as well as clinical studies that have been launched in the same time frame to assess the actual therapeutic potential of this intervention.