Researchers unveil a groundbreaking DNA vaccine that supercharges immunity and boosts survival in patients with aggressive breast cancer—could this be the future of personalized cancer treatment? Study: Neoantigen DNA vaccines are safe, feasible, and induce neoantigen-specific immune responses in triple-negative breast cancer patients . Image Credit: Nemes Laszlo / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Genome Medicine , researchers in the United States of America developed a neoantigen deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vaccine platform and conducted a phase 1 clinical trial to assess its safety and immune response in patients with a high risk of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). They found that the vaccine was well tolerated, induced neoantigen-specific T-cell responses in 78% of patients, and showed a promising recurrence-free survival rate of 87.
5% over 36 months, compared to 49% in historical controls. Background Tumor-expressed mutant proteins that can be recognized by the immune system, called cancer neoantigens, are promising targets for immunotherapy . Advances in cancer sequencing and bioinformatics have enabled the identification of these neoantigens, leading to the development of vaccines that stimulate neoantigen-specific T-cell responses and antitumor immunity.
Initial studies demonstrated the efficacy of neoantigen vaccines in preclinical models and human melanoma using various platforms, including dendritic cells, synthetic long peptide (SLP), .
