Breast cancer patients have been given a new hope following the discovery of a ground breaking new vaccine which has sparked “promise” in battling an aggressive strain of the disease.
A clinical trial in the US involving women with triple-negative breast cancer saw them receive an experimental jab aimed at preventing tumour recurrence.
The pioneering therapy, crafted by experts at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is the first to publish results showing the potential of a neoantigen DNA vaccine in the fight against breast cancer, with the study appearing in Genome Medicine.
The vaccine was praised for being “well-tolerated” and initiating significant immune reactions. In the study, 18 participants faced with non-metastatic triple-negative breast cancer were given standard treatment along with three bespoke vaccine doses, each engineered to target specific tumour mutations and prime immune cells to destroy aberrant cells carrying those changes.
Following the therapeutic course, 14 patients elicited positive immune responses to the vaccine, and impressively, 16 remained tumour-free after a three-year duration.
Although the primary goal of this early-stage trial was to confirm the vaccine’s safety rather than to ascertain its effectiveness – partly because no control group was involved – the researchers also considered historical records of similar patients who solely received the standard care, enhancing the context of their findings.
Study senior author Professor William Gillanders, from Washington University School of Medicine, expressed optimism about the trial results for a new vaccine strategy against triple-negative breast cancer, calling findings “better than we expected”.
Join the Daily Record’s WhatsApp community hereand get the latest news sent straight to your messages.
He acknowledged the limitations of the analysis but remained positive, adding: “Obviously, it’s not a perfect comparison, and we acknowledge the limitations of this type of analysis, but we are continuing to pursue this vaccine strategy and have ongoing randomised controlled trials that do make a direct comparison between the standard of care plus a vaccine, versus standard of care alone.”
Gillanders also noted: “We are encouraged by what we’re seeing with these patients so far.” The aggressive nature of triple-negative breast cancer, which lacks targeted therapies and is usually treated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, makes the search for effective treatments crucial.
Patients with residual tumours after initial chemotherapy were eligible for the trial, as they are considered at “high risk” of recurrence post-surgery. The research team’s approach involves analysing the patient’s tumour tissue against healthy tissue to identify unique genetic mutations in the cancer cells.
The researchers have found a way to alter the proteins in a patient’s cancer cells, allowing the immune system to target the tumour while sparing healthy tissue. They used their own software to select neoantigens—altered proteins produced by the patients’ tumours—that are most likely to elicit a robust immune response.
Each patient’s vaccine included an average of 11 neoantigens, with a range from four to 20, tailored to their specific tumour. A paper published concurrently details the software tools created by the team, which aim to be accessible to cancer researchers and clinicians globally.
Professor Malachi Griffith, who co-led the development of the software, commented: “We hope to promote the use of this software for the design of cancer vaccines.”
He added: “These are complex algorithms, but in general, the software takes in a list of mutations and interprets them in the context of their potential to be good neoantigen candidates.”
Griffith further explained: “The tools rank the possible neoantigens based on our current knowledge of what matters in stimulating the immune system to attack cancer cells.” The software tools, supported by the National Cancer Institute, are open-license, making them widely available for both academic and commercial use.
A number of research projects on cancer vaccines at the Washington University School of Medicine are actively in progress. Some trials focus on breast cancer patients, exploring personalised vaccines used alongside immunotherapies known as checkpoint inhibitors, which enhance T cell activity.
Prof Gillanders expressed optimism about the potential of these treatments, stating: “We are excited about the promise of these neoantigen vaccines.”
He also mentioned: “We are hopeful that we will be able to bring more and more of this type of vaccine technology to our patients and help improve treatment outcomes in patients with aggressive cancers.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.