For decades, scientists have sought to create vaccines that treat cancer. Researchers like Dr. Catherine Wu, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, are moving the field closer to attaining this goal. Wu and her colleagues have developed some of the first personalized cancer vaccines, which train a person’s immune system to recognize and attack specific mutations, known as neoantigens, that are unique to their own tumors. Her lab designed an algorithm that uses genetic sequencing to identify the neoantigens in individual tumors that would elicit a strong immune response, then crafted vaccines targeting them. These vaccines have been tested in early-stage clinical trials on patients with different types of cancer, including melanoma, glioblastoma, and kidney cancer, with results suggesting they could be effective at preventing cancer recurrence in some patients. “Our mission is to be a frontrunner in testing new directions and technologies,” Wu says.
