The human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) is expressed in more than 85% 
of tumor cells but is usually not found in normal cells, which makes hTERT as an 
ideal tumor-associate antigen (TAA) to develop potential vaccine specifically 
destroying cancers without impairing normal tissues in human cancer 
immunotherapy. Here are reviewed the fundamental advances of studies on 
immunogenicity of hTERT or its peptides and the early clinical trials using the 
hTERT vaccine approach in the last decades.