Vaccine combats brain cancer

[MrMatt]

CNN Link

I find this stuff fascinating...I wonder if they could do this with other deadly cancers, say pancreatic?

(CNN) -- Almost a year to the day after learning he had the deadliest form of brain cancer, Steve Holl was dancing at his daughter Eryn's wedding.

"To have my dad there was just one of those moments where you really want to stop time," Eryn Holl says. "You want to look at him and hold on tight."

Fewer than one in three patients with Holl's type of cancer, a glioblastoma, have traditionally survived a year, let alone been well enough to dance.

But Holl, 61, has something going for him beyond radiation and chemotherapy -- a custom-made vaccine.

Holl (pronounced Hall) received the vaccine as part of a clinical trial at the University of California San Francisco.

"The approach that we take is we actually do the surgery. We take the tumor out, and then we make the vaccine directly from that individual patient's tumor. And then give that vaccine back to the patient," says Dr. Andrew Parsa, who heads the trial.

Glioblastomas have been particularly deadly because no matter how skilled, neurosurgeons cannot remove the entire tumor. Some cancer cells remain hidden in the brain and eventually grow back -- usually within months. It's in the family of brain cancers that claimed the life of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

So far, Parsa's ongoing clinical trial is beating those odds. More than a year into the trial, none of the eight patients who have received vaccines made from their tumors has seen cancer return.

"It's really, really encouraging," Parsa says, adding that it's too early to draw any big conclusions.

The vaccines are designed to alert the body to cells that don't belong and trigger the body's immune system to attack multiple points on the cancer cells.

How many vaccine doses patients receive depend on how much of the tumor surgeons are able to remove. Holl had the first of 14 vaccine doses in February.

Using a vaccine to fight cancer makes sense to Holl, a biologist who lives in Folsom, California.

"Smallpox works, polio works," says Holl. "You're allowing your own body to combat the cancer, which is an irregularity anyway."

Parsa envisions someday treating glioblastomas as a chronic disease, rather than a death sentence.

"I don't think that it's appropriate to use the word cure with glioblastoma. We really want to turn this into a chronic disease like hypertension or diabetes that allows you to take medicine to live a normal life," he says.

Parsa's research is being funded by a combination of federal grants and donations from advocacy groups such as the National Brain Tumor Society.

"This trial would not have happened without the support of patient advocacy groups," Parsa says.

In addition to UCSF, Columbia University and Case Western Reserve University are also testing the vaccine, and the clinical trial may expand to more hospitals.

In the past month, Holl has walked Eryn down the aisle and celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary. He is upbeat about the future.

"I'm really hopeful that the vaccine works and I can get another 20 years of life," Holl says.

 

[brainhulk]

thats awesome. Sounds so simple that we should have figured this out earlier right?

 

[Perknose]

Sounds so simple that we should have figured this out earlier right?

Indeed! Brain surgery and complex chemical extraction and formulation are two of my home hobbies, I tell you whut! :awe: (j/k)

 

[rasczak]

Omg!!! Thank you for finding this!!!! Thank you thank you thank you soo much!!!!!

 

[dud]

I wish they had this back in the '90s. My mother died of brain cancer in 1999.

 

[moshquerade]

I wish they had this back in the '90s. My mother died of brain cancer in 1999.

I look at this way... every death from cancer is getting us closer to a cure, or a vaccine possibly, in this case. your mom, and my dad, didn't die in vain from this disease. they helped, along with so many others, with the progression towards a cure so that one day cancer will not be a killer.

thanks OP for posting this article. it's truly inspiring.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Someone I know of is dealing with similar cancer (brain tumor that keeps coming back), I'll try and pass this through so that maybe they can bring it up to their doctor to consider.

 

[Train]

Omg!!! Thank you for finding this!!!! Thank you thank you thank you soo much!!!!!

::looks at avatar::

 

[MrMatt]

I wonder how hard it is to get in on one of these trials.

 

[Mo0o]

I wonder how hard it is to get in on one of these trials.

It's not hard if you meet the criteria and are within one of the participating centers. Theres a huge accessible national database of ongoing clinical trials. Although if you're looking to benefit, I wouldn't bother with phase I trials

 

[William Gaatjes]

a lot of cancers seem to originate from a multiple virus infections (present and past ( dormant) or a combination of virus and genetic disposition or viruses and bacteira or any lethal combination of (past(dormant) or present)virus infections, genetic disposition, carcinogens and bacterial infections.

If you find it fascinating, you might want to read the phage virus thread. :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=330409

 

[bfdd]

Absolutely amazing news.

 

[Mo0o]

THese kind of vaccines and man made monoclonal antibodies are the future of medicine. The silver bullet that kills disease while keeping the host unharmed.

 

[Eli]

a lot of cancers seem to originate from a multiple virus infections (present and past ( dormant) or a combination of virus and genetic disposition or viruses and bacteira or any lethal combination of (past(dormant) or present)virus infections, genetic disposition, carcinogens and bacterial infections.

If you find it fascinating, you might want to read the phage virus thread. :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=330409

I just spent the last 2 days reading through your thread and studying the links. Amazing stuff, very informative.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I just spent the last 2 days reading through your thread and studying the links. Amazing stuff, very informative.

I am happy to hear that ^_^.

Nature is extremely flexible and everything is influencing directly or indirectly each other. This can be expected since there are only a few common ancestors from which all life on earth spawned. And all is based on the same chemical properties of elements.

In my opinion :
I do think life always starts inside comets in early solar systems as this system. In the space dust in solar systems similar as this system, the circumstances are ideal to form the basic building blocks. Lot's of ionizing radiation, carbon clouds. Lot's of free protons and electrons (ionized hydrogen and trace elements)because of the solar wind. When these asteroids are caught in the gravity field of a habitable planet such as earth, the magnetic fields of the earth shields of the asteroid from the solar wind. Thus reducing the violent radiation and causes the bonds to remain. But occasionally Solar flares will penetrate and can cause a situation
When the meteorite or asteroid crashes into an habitable planet , maybe 99 percent of those early lifeforms( Hardly life forms, would more be like prions) will die. But the remaining 1 percent has a whole new environment to feed on and to evolve. Add the violence of an early hot earth.

This is not accurate, but i like the song combined with the video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAVX5WLIUrs

Temporary chaos is life as is temporary stability is life. But both for infinity will be sure death, lifeless. The true hot = the infinite hot = the true cold = the infinite cold = no life.

Oops, i got enthusiastic...

 

[Acanthus]

Very cool technology!

This stuff really is wave of the future, I wonder why they don't do it with AIDS.

 

[Analog]

A friend of mine recently died of brain cancer. What a terrible disease, and I hope this will eventually become mainstream.