Dr. Catherine Wu of Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute may have made the next large step towards finding a successful cure to cancer with new personalized vaccines. Wu and her team recently reported positive results with the new vaccines which showed major progress in the battle against cancer.
Dr. Wu was awarded the Sjöberg Prize on February 14 for her dedication and success in the vaccine field of cancer study. The Sjöberg Prize is an annual award established in 2017 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Sjöberg Foundation, for people that have made progressive contributions to cancer research. The foundation stated that vaccines of this type could now be given to a larger group of patients with different types of cancers that are seen as difficult or incurable.
"I'm a strong supporter and believer in innovation that comes from academic medicine. To be able to support risk-taking and trying to generate new and disruptive findings, ones that can help build and be impactful for patient care, I think that’s where we hope the support from this prize can go," Wu said.
Her interest in cancer research started with the immune system, which began when she watched her first bone-marrow transplant during her time as a medical intern.
"I had really formative academic experiences that made me quite interested in the power of immunology," Wu said. "There in front of my eyes were people who are being cured of their leukemia because of the mobilization of immune response."
Wu then focused her research on small mutations in cancer cells, which lead to tumor neoantigens. The neoantigens are recognized by immune systems T-cells as foreign and try to attack them. Wu and her colleagues were able to sequence DNA from cancer cells and healthy cells to identify a patient's tumor neoantigens. Wu noted that all cancers are different, each with its own genetic makeup, which is what led Wu and her team to research the mutations and learn how to make the body fight them off. The team's goal is to teach the body to take the genetic information and compromise it with the vaccine.
"Catherine Wu has been enormously important in moving forward research in this field. She has played a decisive role in making it possible to conduct clinical trials of cancer vaccines for melanoma (skin cancer), pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer," Urban Lendahl, Professor of Genetics at Karolinska Institute and Secretary of the Prize Committee said.
During the first trials of the vaccine the FDA usually requires new drugs to be tested on animals before continuing trials, but Wu said that it wouldn’t be necessary. The vaccine is supposed to be specific to each human, so testing on animals would not make any difference.
“That’s very exciting and I hope it goes far,” NHS senior Katelyn Ivey said.
In second grade Wu drew a picture of herself holding the cure for cancer, and now decades later she has been awarded the Sjöberg Prize for her groundbreaking discoveries in the field. The vaccine has shown to be promising, as Dr. Wu’s method may be able to heal over 200 types of cancer, including pancreatic cancer and some of the most difficult diseases to treat.