The breakthrough jab, created using technology perfected in the COVID pandemic, is given to patients after they complete conventional treatment for head and neck cancers. Patients have a high chance of the cancer coming back. Preliminary data from a clinical trial being run at the Clatterbridge Cancer Center show that none of the first eight patients who received the vaccine have relapsed, even after several months. But the cancer returned in two of the eight patients who had not been vaccinated. The numbers are too small to draw firm statistical conclusions. However, Professor Christian Ottensmeier, consultant medical oncologist and director of clinical research at the centre, told Sky News he was “cautiously optimistic”. “I’m really optimistic, yes,” he said. “I’m very excited about it. All the data is pointing in the right direction.” A small clinical trial of the vaccine in ovarian cancer patients in France and the US also shows promising results. How does the vaccine work? The jab, codenamed TG4050, is made by a French company called Transgene using similar technology that produced AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine. DNA from an individual patient’s tumor is cut and pasted into a harmless virus. When the genetically modified virus is injected into the body, it trains the immune system to track down cancer cells, hopefully destroying them at an early stage before there’s even a lump. Read more: The story of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine “The immune system can see things that we can’t see on scans,” Professor Ottensmeier said. “It is much more intelligent than human beings. “If we can train the immune system to select those cells that would otherwise lead to relapse at a time when we can’t even see them, then the chances of long-term survival for our patients are much higher.” Doctors are optimistic about the jab because it is so carefully tailored to a person’s cancer. Mutations in the DNA of cancer cells vary between patients. By making a unique vaccine for each patient, it should be more effective at targeting rogue cells. Ten doses down, 10 more to go Sky News has been granted permission to film Brian Wright receiving his 10th dose of the vaccine in Clatterbridge. He has 10 more installments between now and January. Mr Wright had a 16-hour operation almost exactly a year ago to remove a tumor from the floor of his mouth and replace his lower jaw with bone taken from his leg. He then underwent grueling weeks of radiation therapy. He said the vaccine treatment had no side effects, but he needed convincing to take part at first. “If you’ve had cancer in your throat,” he said, “and they say they’re going to inject you with that cancer, it just sounds like…’oh no, you’re not.’ “But then they explained that it’s not going to give you cancer back, it’s going to make your body immune to that cancer.” Thirty patients are participating in the head and neck cancer trial. Half will get the vaccine once they’ve finished conventional treatment, while the other half will only get it when they relapse. Subscribe to the Daily Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker The COVID pandemic has accelerated the development of vaccine technology that was once considered highly experimental. The Oxford team of scientists that developed the AstraZeneca jab is using the same “viral vector” strategy to target prostate cancer. And the mRNA technique that underpinned Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID vaccines was recently used with promising results against pancreatic cancer. Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Oxford team at the Jenner Institute, said: “The pandemic has helped and accelerated the development of a number of new vaccines. “We’ve learned about their safety in billions of people, where previously it was thousands, and that’s useful safety data to have. “And it means a lot more investment in areas like cancer, where we desperately need better treatments.”
