Investigators at The Tisch Cancer Institute are developing different types of personalized vaccines, including those that treat cancers with common cell mutations and those combined with checkpoint inhibitors.
Tumors accumulate DNA mutations at a high rate, and some of these mutations result in the translation of mutated proteins, termed neoantigens. These novel and patient-specific proteins can be immunogenic and represent promising targets for the development of personalized cancer vaccines.
At the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in April 2021, researchers led by Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD—Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research and Director of Immunotherapy at The Tisch Cancer Institute (TCI)—reported promising results in a unique and personalized vaccine trial. They showed that a personalized genomic vaccine—specific to the neoantigens created in individual patients—was, in fact, safe and potentially beneficial.