University of Queensland researchers have developed a cancer vaccine for blood cancers and solid malignancies, providing a major breakthrough in cancer treatment.
Lead researcher Associate Professor Kristen Radford said the vaccine, developed in partnership with Monash University, fused human antibodies with tumour-specific protein and provided several key advantages over existing cancer vaccines.
“Early preclinical studies have shown the vaccine targets key immune cells needed to generate tumour-specific immune responses, maximising the treatment’s effectiveness and minimising potential side effects,” Associate Professor Radford said.
Researchers hope the vaccine could be used to treat blood cancers, such as myeloid leukaemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma and childhood leukaemia, and malignancies that included breast, lung, renal, ovarian, pancreatic and glioblastoma cancers.
Associate Professor Kristen Radford said the vaccine could be produced as an ‘off the shelf’ clinical grade formulation, avoiding financial and logistical issues associated with patient-specific vaccines.
“We hope our continued work towards finding a safe and effective cancer vaccine will benefit cancer patients in the future.”
The study was published in the journal Clinical and Translational Immunology, (DOI: 10.1002/cti2.1141), and funded by grants from the Mater Foundation and Worldwide Cancer Research in the United Kingdom.
Media: Associate Professor Kristen Radford, kristen.radford@mater.uq.edu.au; Faculty of Medicine Communications, med.media@uq.edu.au, +61 7 3365 5133, +61 436 368 746.
