Researchers on Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus have been awarded a $13.3 million, 5-year federal grant to test a vaccine designed to prevent the recurrence of triple-negative breast cancer. This Breakthrough Award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Breast Cancer Research Program will fund a national, phase II clinical trial testing the ability of a folate receptor alpha vaccine to prevent recurrence of this aggressive cancer following initial treatment. The trial will enroll 280 patients at multiple clinical sites and is expected to begin in 2016.
Success in Phase I Trial
A 22-patient phase I clinical trial, previously conducted by the grant’s principal investigator, Keith Knutson, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology, found the vaccine was safe. It did not induce autoimmunity, as some vaccines can. The vaccine was designed by Dr. Knutson and initially tested by researchers at Mayo Clinic’s Minnesota campus for safety and its ability to stimulate the immune system.
It exploits the need of triple-negative breast cancer to take in folic acid to grow, said Dr. Knutson. Because of that need, these tumors overproduce the folate receptor alpha, which latches on to folic acid in the tumor’s microenvironment. Evidence shows some patients naturally produce an immune response to parts of these receptors, “but the cancer is much too strong for what is typically a weak immune response,” said Dr. Knutson.
The vaccine is designed to boost the immune system to rapidly react to the presence of the receptor on cancer cells early in the course of tumor recurrence. “We believe this vaccine will provide a much more robust and sustained immune response to these receptors, which will then improve the body’s ability to directly or indirectly kill the tumor by cutting off access to the folate it needs to respond to cancer if it begins to reemerge in these patients,” he said.
The grant is a collaborative effort among Mayo Clinic’s clinicians, clinical researchers, and basic science researchers, said Edith Perez, MD, a breast cancer researcher at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Florida. Dr. Perez is a partner and Principal Investigator on the grant, along with Dr. Knutson. ■
Disclosure: Mayo Clinic and Dr. Knutson have a financial interest in the technology referenced in this Announcement. TapImmune Inc has a license for the vaccine and will supply it for the trial.
