Personalized vaccines against cancer may be a thing of reality soon. The European-funded Glioma Actively Personalized Vaccine Consortium (GAPVAC) is ready to head into a Phase 1 clinical trial for patients with glioblastoma, the type of aggressive brain cancer Brittany Maynard had before she chose to end her life earlier this month, according to The Washington Post.
Cancer treatments tend to target antigens and focus on killing cancer cells, but the GAPVAC is hoping to take "cancer vaccines to the next level by assessing the individuality of each patient´s disease to utilize the full antigenic potential of immunotherapy," according to the GAPVAC's website. "GAPVAC's goal is to deliver to patients a novel class of medicine: Actively Personalized Vaccines (APVACS), which are actively tailored to the tumor characteristics of each individual patient."
Each study participant will allow researchers to collect genetic information from their existing tumors and immune system, which will allow scientists to create to vaccine "cocktails," according to The Washington Post.
"A patient may express 20 of these 72 targets on their tumor, for example," Harpreet Singh said in October, according to The Washington Post. "If we find that the patient's immune system can mount responses to five of the 20 targets, we mix five peptides and give them to the patient."
"Personalization is not limited to vaccines but is a general principle that could be applied to cancer immunotherapy more broadly," Singh said, according to The Washington Post. "We are starting with vaccines, but we are also thinking about how to use personalized antigens in adoptive cell therapy."
