Therapeutic Vaccines
A widespread belief among biomedical researchers today is that we all have pre-cancerous growths occurring within our bodies on a fairly regular basis. When this happens, our immune systems, if they are healthy and functioning properly, quickly recognize these cells as being abnormal and kill them before they can accumulate in sufficient quantities to constitute a threat to our overall health. However, sometimes the immune system can fail in this vital task, either because it has become defective in some way or because the aberrant cells have devised a way to shield themselves from detection.
Because of the unique ability of the immune system to identify and selectively destroy cancerous cells, this field of research has drawn the keen attention of scientists throughout the world. The intuitive appeal of using the immune system to attack cancer is obvious. Rather than bombarding the body with high-energy radiation or pumping it full of poisons that may well kill the patient before killing his cancer, an effective vaccine would be able to mobilize the body’s own sophisticated cellular defense mechanisms in order to contain and hopefully eradicate the disease.
The most obvious way to harness the power of the immune system is to somehow “re-sensitize” it to the presence of cancer within the body by the administration of a safe and effective vaccine composed of dormant cancer cells that the immune system can recognize. Recognition of these vaccine cells will then cause the immune system to mount an effective response against the patient’s tumor(s). The most common method of preparing a cancer vaccine consists of obtaining cancer cells of the same basic tumor type (e.g.: lung, prostate, breast, etc.), culturing them to obtain a sufficient number of cells, irradiating them with just enough radiation to destroy their ability to reproduce while not affecting their viability as living cells, and then injecting them directly into the patient. This process is typically repeated several times over the course of several months.
Vaccines are injections of substances designed to activate the patient\'s immune system in order to attack a specific target, such as a cancer cell. Scientists have experimented with using tumor cells as vaccines for the past 30 years. The theory is simple: vaccinate a cancer patient with tumor cells and the vaccine will induce an immune response that destroys tumor cells throughout the body. Unfortunately a major barrier called immunosuppression limits the efficacy of this technology. Immunosuppression happens because most tumor cells produce molecules that allow the cells to hide from the immune system, preventing the development of clinically effective immune responses.
The patented NovaRx technology helps to overcome this immunosuppressive barrier. NovaRx scientists observed that a molecule called transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) is one of the most potent immunosuppressive molecules produced by tumor cells. The Company’s technologies block the immunosuppressive effects of TGF-β in the vaccine, rendering the vaccine more potent.
