Personalized Cancer Vaccines Used to Treat 3 Patients

One day, cancer treatment regimens might include vaccines specially tailored to each patient. In a small preliminary study published in Science, researchers report successful use of these vaccines in 3 patients.

To help the melanoma patients fight off their cancers, the researchers sequenced the genomes of their tumors. They used this genetic information to figure out what peptides (chains of amino acids) known as neoantigens would show up on the surface of the tumor.

"You can think of a neoantigen as a flag on each cancer cell," first author Beatriz Carreno, an associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said in a statement. "Each patient's melanoma can have hundreds of different flags."

Read more at The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1DCckND