Understanding the science and the potential of cancer vaccines

 In this video, Dr. Claudia Gravekamp, an Associate Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, describes the principles of cancer vaccination and her own lab's cutting-edge research in the field. She begins by presenting the basics of cancer and tumor immunology, then discusses the advantages of cancer vaccines compared to current therapies. Dr. Gravekamp details how these therapies leverage cytotoxic T lymphocytes to kill cancerous cells, then describes the multiple hurdles that cancer vaccines have yet to overcome, including the relative lack of naive T cells in elderly patients. Finally, Dr. Gravekamp launches into a thorough description of her own research to make better cancer vaccines using Listeria, an intracellular bacterium that does not multiply in normal tissues but does infect tumor cell.