Cancer is a disease that affects nearly everyone, either directly and/ or indirectly. In 2008 alone, there were nearly 12.7 million new cancer cases reported and close to 7.6 million people lost their battle with this disease worldwide. In the past several years, unique carbohydrate antigens known as tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACAs) were found to be expressed at abnormal levels on cancer cell surfaces differentiating them from normal cells. This makes them viable targets for vaccine design.One such TACA is the Tn antigen. The immunological responses of this B-cell epitope conjugated to T-cell epitopes such as Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), a mutant of TMV, and the Qβ capsid were evaluated. Additionally, several control vaccines were synthesized and immunologically evaluated to determine the affect of the linkers during an immune response.Analysis of the vaccine constructs by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) revealed discrepancies between the antibody titers measured for the control and experimental populations. This led to the investigation into the measured background absorbance using each vaccine construct. Changing from an ELISA plate coated with NeutrAvidin to one coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA) resulted in a much lower background.Finally, three glyco-polymers conjugated to the surface of a protein carrier, expressing the Tn antigen in varying degrees, were synthesized in hopes of further enhancing the immune response elicited.
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