The present invention relates to methods for purifying immunogenic,prophylactically and therapeutically effective complexes of modified heatshock proteins noncovalently associated with antigenic peptides of cancer orinfected cells. The claimed methods comprise the constructing of a nucleotidesequence encoding a secretable modified heat shock protein, expressing thesequence in an appropriate host cell, recovering the immunogenic complexesfrom the cell culture and the cells, and purifying the immunogenic complexesby affinity chromatography. Large amounts of such immunogenic complexes can beobtained by large-scale culturing of host cells containing the geneticsequence. The complexes can be used as a vaccine to elicit specific immuneresponses against cancer or infected cells, and to treat or prevent cancer orinfectious diseases.
