Searching for the Ideal Cancer Vaccine

Traditional cancer treatments – surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy – entail serious, treatment-limiting side effects. The search for novel cancer treatments that operate outside of traditional cytotoxic mechanisms has focused on various role players, for example the cytokines, monoclonal antibodies, and even DNA. All these approaches effect individual components of immune function, but none by themselves has been shown to be able to direct a simultaneous, integrated response of the entire immune system that is robust enough to keep cancer at bay for very long.

Newer, targeted therapies like Herceptin and Avastin are beginning to turn the tide in cancer therapy by shutting down cancer-specific pathways while sparing healthy biological mechanisms. Within a decade, increased understanding of genomic and proteomic function will enable the manipulation of novel therapeutic pathways, while increasing our ability to identify patient populations most likely to respond and least susceptible to serious side effects.

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