Have you ever heard of the history about “Coley’s Toxin”? It all started in 1891, where a bone surgeon from New York, named Dr William B. Coley, made the first attempt to stimulate the immune system of osteosarcoma patients by injecting them with a mixture of heat killed bacteria preparations which consist of inactivated Streptococcus Pyogenes and Serratia Marcescens. He was inspired by the observation of spontaneous remissions of sarcomas in rare-cancer patients who had developed erysipelas. His efforts was a success and since then he was acknowledge as the “Father of Immunotherapy”. Due to the good outcome, other researchers started to dive deeper and explore the basis of immunotherapy up to this day.
Today, the modern science of immunology have resulted in so many types of immunotherapy being produced, especially cancer vaccine. Now, oncologists can offer cancer vaccine to patients for prevention and treatment purposes.
As for prevention purposes, Hepatitis B Vaccine (HBV) is the first cancer vaccine to be approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Initially, this vaccine is used to combat Hepatitis B virus, but later scientists found that this vaccine can also help to prevent hepatocellular carcinoma by inducing natural tolerance. Same goes to Human Papillomavirus Vaccine (HPV) that are now used to prevent cervical, oropharyngeal, anal, penile and vulvovaginal cancers. These pereventative vaccines are also known as prophylactic vaccines that works by introducing antigen to the body in order to create antibody and immunity towards that antigen.
Besides prevention, there are also several cancer vaccines made available in the market for cancer treatment. For instance is the Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) that uses non pathogenic bacterium called Mycobacterium Bovis to treat early stage bladder cancer. Other than that, there is the Sipuleucel -T (Provenge), which is a dendritic cells-based vaccine used to treat prostate cancer.
Cancer vaccine derived from many different sources which include tumor cell, dendritic cell, protein-based, and also nucleic acid. Modern technology have produced gene-based cancer vaccine by using DNA and RNA, but RNA is said to be the better choice because RNA can be shield from degradation by DNAses or other nucleases before reaching the target site by using lipid nanoparticles (LNP). This gene-based cancer vaccine is used to transport genetic information to the cells in the body in order to produce tumor antigen. The tumor antigen will then be presented by MHC class I on the cell surface to attract and produce more cytotoxic T cells, which resulting in an amplified immune system. This type of cancer vaccine is proven to be safe and effective and able to be manufactured rapidly.
Recently, the famous scientists couple named Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, who invented the revolutionary Covid-19 vaccine which also known as Pfizer, spoke on BBC’s Sunday that they are currenly working on a new mRNA-based cancer vaccine which will be available by 2030. They also mentioned that the global pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus have bring light into their efforts in producing mRNA-based cancer vaccine which started years before they invented Pfizer. This breakthrough have fueld their optimism for cancer vaccine in the upcoming years. Both vaccine shares the same concept where the immune system will be primed to attack the targeted cells. Another gene-based cancer vaccine that is undergoing clinical trial phase II is the mRNA-4157 vaccine which can be used for patients with resected solid tumor and in combination with Pembrolizumab in patient with unresectable solid tumor.
From now on, we can expect more breakthroughs for cancer vaccine which will be a huge help for the patients in need.