What makes a cancer vaccine work for years? Insights from Dr. John Liao and Dr. Nora Disis

Sarah White
5 minutes ago
2 min read

Research from the Cancer Vaccine Institute and others points to a near-term future in which cancer vaccines will play an instrumental role in managing cancer. Therapeutic cancer vaccines are designed to help the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells. A key part of this response is generating T-cells, immune cells, that specifically recognize cancer proteins and create a cancer-killing immune response. Some T-cells become “memory” T-cells, remaining in the body long after vaccination and helping the immune system recognize cancer if it returns.

Because long-lasting immunity is critical to the success of cancer vaccines, researchers are working to understand which factors predict a durable anti-tumor response. The Cancer Vaccine Institute’s Drs. John Liao and Nora Disis recently published a commentary in the Journal of Cancer Immunology, on “Predicting Durable Anti-tumor Immune Responses after Cancer Vaccines.” In the commentary, they highlight two important predictors of durable anti-tumor responses.

First, patients from our HER2 directed vaccine clinical trials who already had immune responses against HER2, a protein found on some cancer cells, were more likely to develop a stronger HER2-specific T-cell response after receiving a HER2-targeted vaccine. These patients were also more likely to maintain those responses for months after vaccination, with many showing persistent immunity one year later.

Second, the strength of a patient’s immune response about one month after vaccination may be an even better predictor of long-term immunity than pre-existing immunity alone. Patients who generated strong T-cell responses at this early time point were more likely to maintain those responses over time.

These findings advance our understanding of how cancer vaccines generate lasting immune protection and may help researchers identify which patients are most likely to develop durable immune responses following vaccination. Insights like these can guide the development of more effective cancer vaccines and personalized immunotherapy approaches in the future.