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Cancer vaccine tested

January 26, 2012

It's a medical breakthrough generations have waited to see. Clinical trials are getting under way on a vaccine with the potential to kill cancer cells. It's happening at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in western New York. Researchers at Roswell Park have created a vaccine designed to kill cancer cells in the body, and prevent them from coming back.

"We are launching a new clinical trial that will harness the power of the immune system to fight cancer," said Dr. Kunle Odunsi of Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

The vaccine, produced in a special chamber at Roswell that strictly controls temperature and atmospheric gases, will use a special protein that will recruit an army of killer immune cells that seek out and destroy cancer.

"To train your immune system to recognize cancer and to fight it off," explained Dr. Christopher Choi of Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

What is truly remarkable about this discovery is that the vaccine is designed to train the body's defenses to never forget how to kill cancer cells.

Roswell Park Immunologist Dr. Protul Shrikant discovered that a drug called rapamycin, used for many years to prevent rejection of organ transplants, also produces immune cells that, in a sense, have memory; always remembering that cancer cells are bad and should be attacked and killed. He said the discovery was quite accidental.

"It is kind of serendipitous because we just tested this concept that came from nowhere in a laboratory setting, and it did work. It's hard to imagine," Shrikant said.

Now, 18-20 patients fighting many different forms of cancer will be chosen for the first phase of clinical trials.

Nancy Holiman, a fundraiser at Roswell Park, who has fought three types of cancer, most recently breast cancer, hopes she will be among them. She wants the potential protection the vaccine offers.

"To know that you have something in your system and have this memory and be there long term I think would just give you, just another-- help you with your peace of mind," Holiman said.

If the first phase of clinical trials is successful, larger studies will be conducted. It may be several years before the vaccine could be marketed if it's proven to be cancer fighter for the life of the patient.

Click here for more on research to train immune system to kill cancer.