The NeoVax specifically targets each patient’s tumor cells. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it kills tumor cells, but also helps the body to prepare in the event that other types of cells become cancerous.
-1611845843.jpg "Melanoma: towards a new customizable vaccine")
- The NeoVax treatment is surprisingly effective in treating cancer cells.
- Its effectiveness lasts at least for four years.
A vaccine effective for several years against melanoma: this is the discovery made by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, MIT and Harvard (United States). The vaccine, called NeoVax, targets specific proteins on each patient’s tumor cells. Four years later, the immune response triggered by the vaccine remains robust and effective in keeping cancer cells under control. The results were published in the journal naturemedicine January 21, 2021.
For this study, eight people underwent surgery for advanced-stage melanoma that had the potential to recur. In a phase 1 clinical trial, they were treated with NeoVax 18 weeks after the operation. The vaccine, made up of epitopes, i.e. protein fragments that come out of the cell surface and serve as signals to the immune system, works to increase the efficiency of T cells. The epitopes in NeoVax come from abnormal proteins in tumor cells, their role is to warn the body that a cell is cancerous and must be destroyed. Since neoantigens are only found on tumor cells, the immune response triggered spares normal cells.
Four years after NeoVax treatment, all eight patients were alive and six of them showed no signs of active disease. Looking at patients’ T cells, the researchers found that the cells not only ‘remembered’ their initial target epitopes, but also expanded their repertoire to recognize other melanoma-related epitopes.
A long-lasting vaccine
“These Results Demonstrate that a Personal Neoantigen Vaccine Can Stimulate a Durable Immune Response in Melanoma Patients“, indicates Catherine Wu, the co-director of the study. We found evidence that the initial and targeted immune response has broadened over the years to provide patients with ongoing protection against disease.”
In two patients, whose cancer had spread to the lungs, the researchers detected signs that the T cells had entered the tumor tissue, where they can more actively fight off the melanoma cells.
“We found evidence of everything we look for in a strong and sustained immune responsesays Patrick Ott, who co-led the study with Catherine Wu. T cells continued to specifically target melanoma cells and retained a memory of the epitopes to which they initially responded. T cells were activated to kill tumor cells and, critically, branched out to target melanoma epitopes not included in the original vaccine.”
.
-1611845843.jpg&description=Melanoma%3A+towards+a+new+customizable+vaccine){kind=link}