Therapeutic cancer vaccines are an exciting new form of immunotherapy designed to train the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. While recent clinical trials have shown promising results, these vaccines have been most successful in patients whose tumors were surgically removed before treatment. This creates a major challenge for patients with blood cancers, who often live with ongoing disease and may never reach a cancer-free state. New strategies are urgently needed to determine whether cancer vaccines can work effectively in patients with active disease.
This project focuses on myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), a group of blood cancers that can progress into an aggressive form of leukemia with a survival time of less than six months. Many MPN patients carry mutations in a protein called calreticulin (CALR), which drives cancer growth. Current treatments rarely eliminate the malignant stem cells responsible for the disease, meaning patients remain at risk for progression even after therapy.
Dr. Bhardwaj and her team have launched a clinical trial testing a vaccine designed to target the mutated form of CALR, intended to stimulate the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells carrying this mutation. They will evaluate whether vaccination can reduce the number of cancer cells in patients, improve blood counts, and generate strong immune responses involving both T cells and antibodies. The team will also study why immune responses may weaken over time, including mechanisms of immune exhaustion and suppression.
This work could provide critical proof that therapeutic vaccines can directly alter the course of blood cancers and help guide the development of more effective combination immunotherapies in the future.
Projects and Grants
Defining vaccine-induced immunity against mutated Calreticulin in myeloproliferative neoplasms
