4 View gallery <\/p>\n
![\"\u05d3\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SyeQ3k3VaZe_0_105_1000_563_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Donna")
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Gustafson, now 72 and living in Florida, was the first patient to receive an mRNA vaccine against pancreatic cancer. Six years later, the cancer has not returned. Last year, she climbed Mount Etna in Sicily to celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no limitations on what I can do. For me, it was truly a miracle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers known to medicine, and also a silent enemy that is usually discovered dramatically late. Fewer than 13% of those diagnosed survive more than five years, and it is the third-leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with numbers rising. There is no routine screening test for early detection, unlike colonoscopy or mammography, and symptoms usually appear only when the disease is already advanced. Only about 20% of cases are operable, and surgery is a necessary condition for taking part in the vaccine trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a cancer where nothing has really worked,\u201d Dr. Vinod Balachandran, director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the leader of the trial, told CNN. \u201cChemotherapy, radiation, targeted therapy and existing immunotherapies have all mostly failed. New approaches are urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n 4 View gallery <\/p>\n Dr. Vinod Balachandran, director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York <\/p>\n (Photo: Memorial Sloan Kettering)<\/p>\n The phase 1 trial, the first of three clinical trial stages, included 16 patients. Eight developed a strong immune response to the vaccine, known as responders, while eight did not. Follow-up data after 3.2 years were published last year in the journal \u201cNature,\u201d showing that responders had a significantly lower recurrence rate than nonresponders. In recent days, extended follow-up data from the same trial, covering up to six years, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego.<\/p>\n The gap between the two groups is striking. Seven of the eight responders, or 87.5%, are still alive. By contrast, among the eight patients who did not respond to the vaccine, only two, or 25%, are still alive, with a median survival of 3.4 years. It is important to stress: This is not a new study, but a long-term follow-up update from the same small trial. Still, the evidence that the immune response has lasted six years, and that the patients continue to survive is a significant finding in itself.<\/p>\n Professor Irit Ben-Aharon, director of the Fishman Oncology Center at Rambam Health Care Campus and head of gastrointestinal malignancies at the medical center, said the study is groundbreaking in several respects.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first is the point at which the treatment enters the disease timeline, in the \u2018adjuvant\u2019 part, meaning in localized disease, after surgery and the chemotherapy that follows,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the sacred window of time to increase the chances of cure and reduce the risk of disease recurrence, which is one of the major problems in pancreatic cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Ben-Aharon, \u201cThe recurrence rate, meaning the reappearance of the disease after surgery, is very high, and treating microscopic disease may eradicate the \u2018seed of trouble,\u2019 those cancer cells that remain in the body and can cause the disease to recur. The second aspect is the mechanism of action, which is engineered according to the characteristics of each patient\u2019s original tumor. In other words, the vaccine is not produced broadly and generally for some antigen, but for the antigens of the individual patient\u2019s tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n The vaccine is not designed to destroy existing tumors, but to eliminate cancer cells that remain in the body after surgery and prevent recurrence. After the tumor is removed, it is sent to Germany for genetic analysis. A personalized vaccine is then prepared for each patient, based on up to 20 unique mutations in that patient\u2019s tumor. Those mutations produce foreign proteins called neoantigens, which immune cells can recognize as a threat. After receiving the vaccine, patients also undergo standard chemotherapy.<\/p>\n To understand the vaccine\u2019s mechanism in greater depth, it is important first to understand what mRNA is, a term many remember from the breakthrough COVID-19 vaccines. It is a short genetic code that gives the body\u2019s cells instructions to produce a specific protein. Unlike preventive vaccines, such as the flu vaccine, a therapeutic cancer vaccine is not designed to prevent the disease from appearing in the first place, but to prevent it from returning.<\/p>\n The main challenge is that cancer cells come from the body itself, so the immune system does not identify them as an enemy.<\/p>\n \u201cOur immune system is wired to recognize viruses and pathogens as foreign, so a vaccine teaches it to do something it already wants to do,\u201d Balachandran explained. \u201cBy contrast, cancer is us. It is derived from our tissues.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea for this vaccine grew out of a discovery Balachandran published in \u201cNature\u201d in 2017 about the rare patients who survive pancreatic cancer for years. In their bodies, he found T cells that recognized the cancer and continued circulating in the blood up to 12 years after surgery, evidence that the immune system can remember cancer over the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cThe foreign proteins the tumor created, the neoantigens, were successfully detected by immune cells and caused them to attack the cancer,\u201d Balachandran said. \u201cIn most pancreatic cancer patients, this does not happen. The tumor \u2018hides.\u2019 In long-term survivors, the mechanism worked.\u201d<\/p>\n The study published last year found that the vaccine generated immune cells with extraordinary durability. Their average life span was estimated at 7.7 years, and about 20% are expected to survive more than a decade in the patient\u2019s body. The data presented this week at AACR strengthen that picture, showing that those cells continue to function actively six years after treatment.<\/p>\n What makes the immune response especially effective is cooperation between two types of cells: cytotoxic T cells, or CD8+ cells, which directly attack cancer cells, and helper T cells, or CD4+ cells, which strengthen and prolong their activity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe an effective cancer vaccine needs to activate both types,\u201d Balachandran said.<\/p>\n Donna Gustafson is not alone. Donald Sarcone, an accountant from Staten Island who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer six years ago after his wife and daughter noticed he had turned yellow, also took part in the trial. The tumor had blocked his bile duct, a symptom that usually appears only when the cancer is already affecting other organs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like a bad dream,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought to myself: I\u2019m only 60, I play tennis, ride a bike, take vitamins. It came out of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n When he was told he was a suitable candidate for the trial, he did not hesitate.<\/p>\n \u201cI just said: Where do I sign?\u201d<\/p>\n Today he is 67, still plays tennis once a week and travels with his grandchildren.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are days when I forget what I went through because I\u2019m healthy and I moved on with life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"\u05d3"\u05e8](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Syb7nynN611x_1_0_1000_563_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Dr.")
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![\"\u05d3\u05d5\u05e0\u05dc\u05d3](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/S1mny3Epbl_0_0_1000_563_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Donald")
<\/a>![\"\u05e1\u05e8\u05d8\u05df](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/H1WKtB3VaWg_0_0_1000_666_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Pancreatic")
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