Scientific and technological innovation is accelerating the development of effective cancer vaccines, report Drs. Daina Vanags, Cori Gorman and Christian K. Schneider of Biopharma Excellence.
Key insights:
- Advances in high-throughput genomic analysis as well as in epitope prediction “have enabled the design of personalised epitope peptides on the basis of mutations in cancer.”
- Cold tumours are less immunogenic than hot tumours and so, need to be changed into hot tumours to make them more sensitive to immunotherapy.
- mRNA vaccines can be modified more rapidly than protein-based vaccines, and may generate more activated T-cells.
- Some of the autoimmunity issues facing cancer vaccines can perhaps be solved by using neoantigens, which can signal the immune system to target cancer cells without harming non-cancerous cells.
When the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was approved, it established the principle that cancer can be prevented, perhaps even treated, by a vaccination. This success followed research which found that 95% of cervical cancers are due to HPV.