Not CLL-Specific (Yet?)

[yazbe]

Is the next big step in cancer therapy personalized vaccines? - SCIENMAG

apple.news/AQ8OfGP_mR1G6O-r...

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

MD Anderson just treated a patient with a vaccine for CLL it was developed at the Pasteur Institute in Paris... I believe.

[yazbe in reply to Cllcanada]

Yes, I saw a video clip of an interview with Dr. ? about the CLL vaccine & read about a clinical trial at the NIH site. No results have been published yet, but the doc in the interview stated he thought the vaccine could come to market by the end of 2019. He was optimistic the vaccine could be a cure.

[cajunjeff in reply to Cllcanada]

Dr Keating is my doc at MD Anderson and has been talking to me about this trial for a while. He tried to explain it to me, but it was over my head. Here is my amateur interpretation.

When our chromosomes divide our telomeres shorten. An enzyme called telomerase is released to repair our telomeres. In Cll folks, the telomerase doesn’t turn off the way it is supposed to.

They have experimented to no avail with telomerase inhibitors. Some doctor in France has created a fake enzyme that mimics telomerase and creates antibodies our own immune system can use. This could have application for many cancers.

If I understood him correctly, this is not some trial where it takes years to know if it will work. He mentioned the vaccine as something he might add to my treatment at some point.

I see him again at the end of November and will ask him if there are any early results from the trial. I think the trial got delayed but is now underway. It feels like a long shot to me, it just seems there would be more trials and more buzz about it. Maybe if they see some results in this trial it will be something they can refine and investigate more.

Keating seems excited about it, but he is such a positive energy glass half full guy, it’s hard to know how much of a long shot it is. The idea that we could slow down or stop our Cll with a vaccine is sure a fun thought. I’ll post on it after my next visit with Dr Keating in November and see if he knows about any early results he is able to share with me. Jeff

[HopeME in reply to cajunjeff]

Doctors (especially cancer doctors) aren’t typically glass half full type people. If I had to bet on it, MD Anderson might be the research hospital where a cure is found. Lots of positive energy at that place. It is happening fast but probably not as fast as we would all like. Ten to fifteen years to sort this all is my guess.