New Vaccine Against HPV-Induced Cancer Proves Successful

A New synthetic anti-cancer vaccine has yielded positive results for Researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center, effectively killing human papillomavirus-derived cancer, a virus linked to cervical cancers among others when given to mice.

 Esteban Celis, M.D., Ph.D., senior member and professor in Moffitt's Immunology Program tells Newswire,"Vaccines for cancer can be good alternatives to conventional therapies that result in serious side-effects and are rarely effective against advanced disease,"

According to statistics cited from the World Health Organization, HPV is known to cause 99 percent of cervical cancers and annually causes more than 250,000 deaths worldwide.  In addition, "HPV is the causative agent of a large proportion of head and neck and genital cancers," says Celis

Though there are vaccines that can prevent the contraction of HPV infection, this vaccine can be used specifically to treat HPV-induced tumors and cancers.

The trial began as a peptide vaccination strategy titled "TriVax-HPV," designed primarily to generate large numbers if cytotoxic T-cells that would seek out the proteins preferentially expressed in the tumors.  

According to Celis and Kelly Barrios-Marrugo, Ph.D., of the University Of South Florida College Of Medicine's Molecular Medicine program, "a vaccine targeting these viral proteins is an "ideal candidate" to create strong immune responses, with the additional benefit of not generating autoimmune-related pathologies."

When tested on mice, the vaccine "induced tumor clearance in 100 percent of the treated mice" while the unvaccinated mice with HPV-induced tumors had their tumors grow at a fast rate."

The researchers hope that once the vaccine gains clearance, it will vastly improve standards of HPV treatment therapies, where current therapies for cervical cancer can be devastating, highly toxic and associated with a 10 percent chance of recurrence.