Cancer vaccines

Cancer vaccines help to ‘jump start’ the immune system against tumour cells. Vaccines are not yet a major type of treatment for cancer, although there is research into a type of vaccine that health professionals call a dendritic cell vaccine.

DC Vax®-L is a dendritic cell vaccine which has been used in a clinical trial for glioblastoma, read about the early findings from the trial. 

Several vaccines for DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma) are being/have been tested in clinical trials.

Vaccines are harmless versions of a cell that health professionals put into the body to start your immune system responding against certain diseases. Vaccines to prevent diseases like measles or chickenpox are commonplace. Scientists are now using similar principles to develop vaccines to prevent, and sometimes treat, cancer.

The changes that lead to a cancerous cell vary from person to person, so finding a cancer vaccine that works in a population of people with one type of cancer is still challenging. Clinical trials for vaccines for other cancer types are ongoing.

Vaccines to prevent diseases such as measles or chickenpox are widely available. Now, scientists are aiming to create vaccines that can preventing and even treat cancer. Clinical trials for different types of cancer vaccines are currently underway.

Dendritic cell vaccines

Dendritic cell vaccines have shown the most success so far in treating cancer.

What are Dendritic cells?

Dendritic cells are special immune cells in the body that help the immune system recognise foreign cells, such as tumour cells. They break down foreign cells into small pieces to reveal the foreign substances (antigens) it contains. Dendritic cells then hold out these antigens, so other immune cells called T-cells can see them. The T-cells then start an immune reaction against any cells in the body that contain these antigens.

How Dendritic cell vaccines are made

Scientists make dendritic cell vaccines from the dendritic cells of the person to use them in the body. The process is complex and expensive.

Scientists remove some immune cells from the patient’s blood and expose them in the lab to tumour cells or tumour antigens. They teach the dendritic cells to recognise the tumour antigen and identify it as unwanted in the body. Next, they inject these dendritic cells back into the individual, where they recognise and target tumour cells with that particular antigen on their surface. They then recruit other immune cells in our body and trigger an immune response to kill the tumour cells.

Make the right choices for you

Our Step by Step interactive guide outlines what happens following a diagnosis, to answer your questions and help you to understand what to expect.

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DC Vax®-L

DC Vax®-L is an example of a dendritic cell vaccine. It differs from other immunotherapies that train T-cells to attack cancer cells (such as CAR-T cell therapy listed below), in that most of these immunotherapies attack a single target on the cancer cells – DC Vax®-L uses different types of immune cells, mainly dendritic cells, to recognise different targets. It also mobilises signalling molecules with the aim of involving the whole immune system.

Read more about DC Vax®-L

Scientists have used DC Vax®-L in a clinical trial for glioblastoma, read about the early findings from the trial. 

Other vaccines

Several vaccines for DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma) are being/have been tested in clinical trials. These include an ‘EGFRvIII peptide vaccine’ and a ‘B7-H3 vaccine’. These have tended to be early stage Phase 1 trials that test for safety, so more research needs doing.