JAMA experts lay out how cancer vaccines work and what still blocks them
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In a JAMA lecture, experts described how cancer vaccines are built: an immunogenic protein payload, an adjuvant and a delivery vehicle that together activate innate immunity and generate long-lived T-cell memory. Preventive antiviral cancer vaccines, such as those against HPV and HBV, are already in use, and approved therapeutic options include Sipuleucel-T for prostate cancer and an oncolytic virus for melanoma — though none of these cures disease. The speakers identified two main obstacles: adjuvants that tend to induce antibodies rather than the type 1 cytotoxic T-cell responses needed to attack tumors, and the difficulty of running clinical trials in this setting. They expressed hope that surrogate endpoints for laboratory efficacy could become available within 5 to 8 years.
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- youtube.comJAMA experts explain how cancer vaccines work and what still blocks them
Experts speaking in a JAMA lecture explain that cancer vaccines combine an immunogenic protein payload, an adjuvant and a delivery vehicle to activate innate immunity and generate long-lived T-cell memory. Preventive antiviral vaccines such as those for HPV and HBV already work, and approved therapeutic options include Sipuleucel-T for prostate cancer and an oncolytic virus for melanoma, but none cure disease. The main obstacles are adjuvants that induce antibodies rather than type 1 cytotoxic T-cell responses and the difficulty of clinical trials, with surrogate endpoints for laboratory efficacy hoped for within 5 to 8 years.
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