World's first ovarian cancer vaccine developed in UK at University of Oxford 'could wipe out the disease'
The world’s first vaccine for ovarian cancer - which has been developed in the UK - may help to completely eliminate the disease, experts have said.
OvarianVax is being developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, with the vaccine aiming to train the immune system to recognise early signs of ovarian cancer and attack it at its earlier stages. There is hope that the jab will eventually be given to women preventatively through the NHS, with hope that this will help to eventually wipe out the disease entirely.
It has been suggested that it would work similarly to the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which was rolled out from 2008. Since then, rates of cervical cancer have been cut by 87% in England, according to the British Medical Journal, and is on track to stamp out cervical cancer altogether.
The new research is being headed up by Professor Ahmed Ahmed, director of the ovarian cancer cell laboratory at MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine the University of Oxford, and his team. They will attempt to identify cellular targets for the vaccine by establishing proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells which are most strongly recognised by the immune system.
After assessing how effective the vaccine is in killing mini-models of ovarian cancer in the lab, human trials will begin in people with the BCRA gene, which hugely increases the risk of developing ovarian cancer. The study is being funded by Cancer Research with up to £600,000 over the next three years.
Professor Ahmed, who said he was “optimistic” about the outcome of the trials, said: “The idea is, if you give the vaccine, these tiny tumours will hopefully either reduce, shrink really significantly, or disappear. That would give us the sign that the vaccine is working.”
He added: “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.
“We’ve seen success with the HPV vaccine – it’s really, really incredibly effective.”
Currently, there are around 7,500 new cases of ovarian cancer every year in the UK. People with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes account for between 5% and 15% of all cases with 45% of people the BRCA1 gene likely to develop ovarian cancer before the age of 80 and 20% off those with BRCA2. Those with the VRCA genes are currently recommended to have their ovaries removed by the age of 35 to avoid developing the cancer.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “Projects like OvarianVax are a really important step forward into an exciting future, where cancer is much more preventable. This funding will power crucial discoveries in the lab which will realise our ambitions to improve ovarian cancer survival.
“OvarianVax builds on the exciting developments in vaccine technology during the pandemic. This is one of many projects which we hope will give women longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.”