Researchers at Oxford have secured funding to develop the world’s first ovarian cancer vaccine.
The award of up to £600,000 from the Cancer Research UK will enable the researchers to identify how effectively the vaccine, OvarianVax, could prevent ovarian cancer at an early stage rather than treating it once the disease has already taken hold.
Professor Ahmed Ahmed, director of the ovarian cancer cell laboratory at the University of Oxford and lead for the OvarianVax project, said that better strategies are needed to prevent ovarian cancer. ‘Currently women with BRCA1/2 mutations, who are at very high risk, are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterwards. At the same time, many other cases of ovarian cancer aren’t picked up until they are in a much later stage.
‘I am optimistic because we are talking about preventing the very first few cancer cells that develop - and not trying to cure or treat or prevent the tumour coming back. I'm hoping that, because the number of cells that we will be targeting is quite small, we will have success.’
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There are around 7,500 new ovarian cancer cases every year in the UK, and it is the 6th most common cancer in women. Ovarian cancer risk is up to 65% higher in women with altered BRCA1 genes, and up to 35% higher in women with altered BRCA2 genes, compared to women without these gene alterations. Moreover, there is currently no screening test for ovarian cancer, which is often diagnosed late because symptoms like bloating and no appetite could be indicative of any illness.
Previous research by Professor Ahmed and his team found that immune cells from ovarian cancer patients ‘remember’ the tumour. Building on this research, the scientists will train the immune system to recognise over 100 proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer and find out how effective the vaccine is at killing mini models of ovarian cancer in the lab.
Professor Ahmed acknowledged that there was ‘still a long way to go,’ but believed that if the jab was successful, he would expect to start seeing an impact within the next five years and ultimately hope to ‘wipe out ovarian cancer’.
Commenting on the OvarianVax project, Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK said: ‘This is a really important step forward into an exciting future, where cancer is much more preventable. The funding will power crucial discoveries in the lab which will realise our ambitions to improve ovarian cancer survival.’