Supercharging tumor evolution could create a cancer vaccine to boost immune response

Research from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR, London, UK), the Mayo Clinic (MN, USA) and the University of Leeds (UK) has revealed that supercharging the mutation rate in cancer cells could be used to develop a cancer vaccine to boost the immune response. The study, published in Nature Communications, combined individualized tumor vaccines with checkpoint immunotherapy to cure melanoma and brain tumors in mice. “Cancer’s ability to evolve and become drug resistant is the biggest challenge we face in treating the disease more effectively,” commented Paul Workman (ICR). However, in this study researchers were able to harness the evolutionary...