Studying antigen presentation in chronic hepatitis B infection and liver cancer for therapeutic vaccine design

Abstract

Worldwide about 250 million people are affected by chronic HBV infection (CHB). CHB patients are prone to develop cirrhosis and liver cancer, leading to approximately 1 million deaths each year. Currently, no effective treatment for CHB or liver cancer exists. Antigen specific immunotherapy represents an attractive treatment option. To develop such therapy insight into the presentation of viral and/or tumor antigens in CHB and liver cancer is required. Our efforts to identify target antigens & epitopes for immunotherapy and the subsequent translation of this knowledge towards clinical application will be discussed.