A German-based biopharmaceutical company has just released the first patient clinical trials of a new cancer vaccine that is showing positive results. Perhaps that’s why CureVac N.V.’s stock has risen close to 100 points this year. Scientists explain the vaccine isn’t yet targeted to prevent all cancers but has been developed as a treatment to shrink tumors or prevent a recurrence of the disease. Medical experts say this represents a turning point, especially for lung, breast, skin, and one of the most challenging cancers of all – pancreatic.
Doctors have long recognized that vaccines work against many infectious diseases; until recently, vaccines have not played a critical role in the broad category of cancer. Scientists claim the goal is to optimize immunity by training the patient’s white blood cells to recognize a foreign body like a growth or lump. Once that is identified, the vaccine triggers a reaction that targets the cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone. These tumor antigen vaccines are known as “secondary prevention” treatments.
“More than ever, scientists understand how cancer hides from the body’s immune system. Cancer vaccines, like other immunotherapies, boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells,” according to the Associated Press. This method is a slightly different use for a vaccine because the goal is to keep cancer from growing or recurring.
Cancer Vaccine Breakthroughs
Provenge was the first vaccine therapy used to treat spreading prostate cancer. Researchers harvested a patient’s healthy immune cells and re-entered them into the body by intravenous therapy. It didn’t work well in 2010 when Provenge was approved, but scientists learned a lot – mainly concluding that they had been starting too late with the vax therapy when the patient’s immune system was already compromised.
“Early cancer vaccine research faltered as cancer outwitted and outlasted patients’ weak immune systems,” Olja Finn, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, told AP. Still, this is an expansive way of looking at cancer and is recognized as the new frontier in research. Liver cancer, for example, has been prevented with a Hepatitis B vax; more recently, HPV vaccines have been widely used to prevent cervical cancer.
Although the idea of this medical protocol was published as far back as 2007 in the National Library of Medicine, studies are now taking place with those in the initial stages of cancer, like ductal carcinoma in situ, an early form of breast cancer. During the intervening years, researchers have been trying to teach the T cells in a patient’s body how to recognize, hunt down, and kill cancer cells.
Credit: CDC
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center pointed out, “These vaccines have two main ingredients: distinctive markers called antigens that distinguish cancer cells from normal cells and a chemical ‘red flag’ called an adjuvant that alerts the immune system that cancer is present. When injected, this powerful combination jump-starts an immune response to the cancer. Immune cells can then find and destroy cancer cells in the body.”
Aside from these, the Food and Drug Administration has approved three vaccines to treat cancer. BCG live is used in early-stage bladder cancer, Sipuleucel-T is approved for prostate cancer, and Talimogene laherparepvec is used for melanoma.
Finding a cure for cancer has always been a heavy lift for medical researchers, but their progress is undeniable. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cancer death rates have dropped 27% from 2001 to 2020. The leading cause of death was lung cancer, with men outpacing women by 16%. If administered early, a vaccine that could halt the spread of such a menacing disease, and add years to the lives of those who contract it, would be a real game-changer.
