Thousands of people will test personalized cancer vaccines

Thousands of NHS cancer patients in England are set to have access to trials of a new type of treatment using vaccines to fight their disease.

So far, thirty hospitals have signed up for the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad.

It is designed to match patients with upcoming trials using mRNA technology, as found in current Covid vaccines.

Vaccines are designed to trigger the immune system to recognize and destroy any remaining cancer cells and reduce the risk of the disease returning.

Elliot Pfebve, 55, is the first patient to be treated with a personalized bowel cancer vaccine in England.

Elliot, who has already undergone surgery and chemotherapy, received the vaccine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

“I feel excited. I did some research on the treatment trial. If successful, it will be a medical breakthrough,” he said.

He added: “This could help thousands, if not millions, of people so they can have hope and not go through everything I went through.” »

After Elliot’s initial treatment, tests showed that he still had fragments of cancerous DNA in his blood, which puts patients at increased risk of their cancer returning.

So he signed up for a trial of an experimental vaccine made by German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which uses the same mRNA technology as in the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine.

Vaccines are generally designed to prevent disease.

But cancer vaccines are created as a treatment once a person has been diagnosed.

Just like conventional vaccines, they trigger the immune system to seek out an enemy, in this case the patient’s cancer.

A sample of Elliot’s tumor was sent to BioNTech laboratories in Germany, where up to 20 mutations specific to his cancer were identified.

Using this information, a vaccine was created using mRNA, which contains instructions for Elliot’s cells to produce mutated rogue proteins unique to his cancer cells.

The vaccine acts like a “research poster” that unmasks cancer cells that tend to hide in the body, only to resurface later.

The intention is that the vaccine will prime one’s immune system to seek out and destroy any remaining traces of cancer, and thus improve one’s chances of being cancer-free in years to come.

Dr Victoria Kunene, lead researcher at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, told the BBC: “I think it’s a new era. The science behind this makes sense.

“I hope this becomes the standard of care. It makes sense that we can have something that can help patients reduce their risk of cancer recurrence.”

But it is still early days, and while there is great optimism about the potential of mRNA vaccines for cancer treatment, they remain in the experimental stage and are only available in clinical trials. clinical tests.

More than 200 patients in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Sweden will be recruited into the trial and will receive up to 15 doses of the personalized vaccine.

The study is not expected to be completed until 2027.

It is hoped that vaccines will produce fewer side effects than conventional chemotherapy.

Elliot said that aside from a slight fever after the injection, he had no other problems with the vaccine.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, said: “Seeing Elliot receive his first treatment as part of the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad is a historic moment for patients and the health service as we look to develop better and more ways effective in stopping this disease.

Professor Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer, said: “We know that even after successful surgery, cancers can sometimes come back because there are a few cancer cells left in the body, but using a vaccine to target these remaining cells. maybe a way to prevent this from happening.

Last month, a patient in London received a personalized mRNA vaccine against melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

This vaccine was created by Moderna and used the same technology as in its Covid vaccines.

Moderna and BioNTech have started or are planning trials of mRNA vaccines against a range of tumor types, including lung, breast and bladder cancer.

Although some of these symptoms are very common and can be caused by other conditions, it is important to get checked out by a GP.