Vaccines 2017- Vaccine for Viral and Oncological Diseases - Giulio Tarro - Foundation T. & L. de Beaumont Bonelli for cancer research

The lethal virus that causes the smallpox was eraticated in 1979 in man, because of a worldwide scale vaccination. Recently the Worl Health Organization (WHO) declared that India and Southeast Asia are free for poliovirus, which will cause paralisis, after the utilization of vaccines since 60 years ago. Last year over 800 million doses of combination vaccines were wont to vaccinate Chinese children whereas quite 20 million children worldwide don't receive one or more important vaccinations that would protect them from preventable diseases. The vaccine for hepatitis B virus (HBV) is in a position to stop 50% of all liver cancers. Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) have been correlated with the cervical cancer for genotypes oncogenic in humans: in 2006 the first vaccine against HPV was released. Finally, the power of the system to acknowledge a tumor-associated antigen, thus enabling development of a vaccine approach for preventive also as therapeutic application, represents a main target of this field of research. Application and represents a main target of this field of research.

Cancer vaccines are a sort of immunotherapy which will help educate the system about what cancer cells “look like” in order that it can recognize and eliminate them.

Vaccine is proven reliable method in preventing diseases caused by bacteria and viruses. Since the first vaccine was developed more than 200 years ago, they have prevented some of the twentieth century’s deadliest diseases and have helped save hundreds of millions of lives globally.

In the case of diseases caused by viruses (e.g., measles, polio, and smallpox) and bacteria (e.g., diphtheria, tetanus, and tuberculosis), vaccines work by exposing people to a weakened or inactivated version of the threat. This enables their immune system to identify these threats according to their specific markers—known as “antigens”—and mount a response against them. These vaccines typically work best within the preventive setting, when a private is given the vaccine before being infected by the bacteria or virus.

In the case of cancer, however, the situation is more complicated for several reasons (more below) and this has made it more difficult to develop vaccines to either prevent or treat cancer. In particular, unlike bacteria and viruses, which appear foreign to our system, cancer cells more closely resemble our normal, healthy cells.

Preventive Cancer Vaccines

Viral infections are liable for the event of several cancers and preventive vaccines play a crucial role in reducing risk. For instance, cervical cancer and head and neck cancer are often caused by human papilloma virus, or HPV, whereas cancer of the liver is often caused by hepatitis B virus or HBV. Several vaccines are developed which will prevent HBV and HPV infection and, as a result, protect against the formation of HBV- and HPV-related cancers. Four of those preventive cancer vaccines are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines

Each and every tumor is in some sense unique and has its own distinguishing antigens. As the result, more sophisticated vaccine approaches are required.

Fortunately, doctors can now identify targets on patients’ tumors which will help distinguish cancer cells from their normal cells. Sometimes these targets are normal proteins that are produced at abnormally high levels by cancer cells, such as prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), which is often overexpressed by prostate cancer cells. Considering that insight, the sipuleucel-T vaccine was developed and was approved by FDA in 2010 for the treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer . Additionally, virus-derived proteins expressed by virus-infected cancer cells offer another promising source of markers which will be targeted through vaccines.

Another exception is Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, or BCG, a tuberculosis vaccine that acts as a general immune stimulant. In 1990, BCG became the primary immunotherapy of any type to be approved by the FDA and remains used for the treatment of early-stage bladder cancer.

Personalized Neoantigen Vaccines

In contrast to normal-yet-overexpressed proteins like PAP, tumors also display unique targets that arise as results of mutations. These are mentioned as neoantigens (“new antigens”) and that they are expressed exclusively by tumor cells and not by any of a patient’s healthy cells. With neoantigen vaccines, therefore, it's conceivable that immune responses could be directed precisely against patients’ tumor cells while sparing their healthy cells from immune attack, thus possibly preventing side effects.

In addition to the previously mentioned vaccines, several kinds of neoantigen vaccines are currently being evaluated, both alone and alongside other treatments, during a kind of cancer types in clinical trials. The vaccine for hepatitis B virus (HBV) is in a position to stop 50% of all liver cancers. Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) have been correlated with the cervical cancer for genotypes oncogenic in humans: in 2006 the first vaccine against HPV was released. Finally, the power of the system to acknowledge a tumor-associated antigen, thus enabling development of a vaccine approach for preventive also as therapeutic application, represents a main target of this field of research. application and represents a main target of this field of research.

Note- This work is partly presented at 20th Global Summit & Expo on Vaccines, Immunization & B2B September 18-19, 2017 Houston, USA.

Author(s): Giulio Tarro

Abstract | PDF

Share This Article