Advances in Food Technology and Nutritional Sciences

Open journal

ISSN 2377-8350

The Future Direction of Cancer Vaccines: An Editorial

Nemat Khansari*

Received: September 1st, 2022; Revised: September 15th, 2022; Accepted: September 23rd, 2022; Published: September 28th, 2022

In the past, vaccines were defined as prophylactic entities. Today, there are two types of vaccines: prophylactic for prevention, and therapeutic for the treatment of infections or cancers. Therapeutic cancer vaccine, in fact, represents an option for active immunotherapy for the treatment of late-stage and/or prevention of recurrent diseases.1 The function of a therapeutic cancer vaccine in patients is the eradication of cancer cells by strengthening the patient’s own immune response.2 This type of immunotherapy not only provides a new modality for cancer treatment but also paves the way for designing various therapeutic vaccines for chronic infections.3

In spite of vast progress in this pathway, developing effective and safe therapeutic vaccines is still in its infancy when compared with prophylactic vaccines and immunotherapeutic agents.4 Before new technologies were applied for developing therapeutic vaccines, a few of them like bacilli galmette-guerrin (BCG) was used for the treatment of bladder, and prostate cancers.5,6 Recently, it has been reported successful use of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine for the treatment of multiple cutaneous malignancies.7

It should be noted that despite considerable advances in developing fairly effective and safer cancer vaccines like dendritic cell (DC) vaccine,8 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell,9 human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) derived vaccines,10 deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vaccines,11 neoantigen vaccines,12 the clinical translation of cancer vaccines into clinically effective therapies has been quite challenging.13 Today, technological advances accelerated by the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the emerging application of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology in developing vaccines.14 However, the recent approval of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, namely Dostarlimab, which is a programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1)-blocking antibody used for the treatment of endometrial cancer.15 There are a few others that have Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for clinical use. Pembrolizumab binds to PD-1 proteins found on T-cells. This antibody blocks PD-1 and helps the immune system kill cancer cells.16 It is used to treat melanoma, Hodg kin’s lymphoma, and several other types of cancer.17 Panitumumab is another engineered monoclonal antibody that targets epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) for use in the treatment of colon cancer.18 Rituximab targets CD20 found on B-cells. It is used for the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma. Trastuzumab targets the Her2/neu receptor expressed in some types of breast cancer. Cetuximab targets the EGFR. It has been used in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.19,20 Bevacizumab targets circulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) ligand. It is approved for use in the treatment of colon cancer, breast cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer.21 Mogamulizumab is another humanized monoclonal antibody lacking fucose in the Fc region of the antibody molecule in order to enhance its antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity effect. The target of this antibody is chemokine receptor-4 (CC4) and it has been used for the treatment of relapsed and/or refractory mycosis fungoides as well as cutaneous T-cell myeloma.22 All these FDA-approved antibodies are developed based on targeted immunotherapy as major modalities of cancer treatment. Targeted cancer therapies are expected to be more effective than other forms of therapies that are more harmful to normal cells as well as cancer cells.

It should be noted that continued advancement in the application of molecular technologies and the growing attention of scientists to targeted cancer therapies would lead us to apply more personalized cancer therapies which require the cooperation of laboratory scientists and clinicians. Consequently, in the near future, the distinction between therapeutic vaccines and medicines will fade away.

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2. Lollini PL, Cavallo F, Nanni P, Forni G. Vaccines for tumor prevention. Nat Rev Cancer. 2006; 6: 204-216. doi: 10.1038/nrc1815

3. Boukhebza H, Bellon N, Linhacher JC, Inchauspe N. Therapeutic vaccination to treat chronic infectious diseases. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2012; 8: 1746-1757. doi: 10.4161/hv.21689

4. Guo C, Manjili MH, Subjeck JR, Sarkar D, Fisher PB, Wang XY. Therapeutic cancer vaccines: Past, present and future. Adv Cancer Res. 2013; 119: 421-475. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-407190-2.00007-1

5. Vandeborne L, Pantziarka P, van Nuffel AMT, Bouche G. Repurposing infectious disease vaccines against cancer. Front Oncol. 2021; 11: 688755. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.688755

6. Morales A. Adjuvant immunotherapy in superficial bladder cancer. Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 1978; 49: 315-319.

7. Geizhals S, Lebwol MG. Successful treatment of multiple cutaneous malignancies with HPV vaccination. Case report. SKIN The Journal of Cutaneous Medicine. 2020; 4: 148-155. doi: 10.25251/ skin.4.2.9

8. Khansari N. Dendritic cell vaccine and its application in cancer therapy. Int J Vaccines Vaccin. 2015; 1: 1-5. doi: 10.15406/ijvv.2015.01.00002

9. Smith AJ, Oertle J, Warren D, Prato D. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for malignant cancers: Summary and perspective. J Cell Immunother. 2016; 6: 59-68. doi: 10.1016/j.jocit.2016.08.001

10. Kailshiya C, Sharma HB, Kailshiya J. Telomerase based anticancer immunotherapy and vaccines approaches. Vaccine. 2017; 35: 5768-5775. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.09.011

11. Liu MA. DNA vaccines: An historical perspective and view to the future. Immunol Rev. 2011; 239: 62-84. doi: 10.1111/j.1600065X.2010.00980.x

12. Farashi-Bonab S, Khansari N. Improving clinical efficacy of cancer vaccine using neoantigen identified in cancer patients. Vaccine & Vaccination Res. 2019; 4: 20-27.

13. Jain S, Venhataraman A, Wechsler ME, Peppad NA. Messenger RNA-based vaccines: Past, present, and future in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2021; 179: 14000. doi: 10.1016/j.addr.2021.114000

14. Kasherman L, Ahrari S, Lheureux S. Dostarlimab in the treatment of recurrent or primary advanced endometrial cancer. Future Oncol. 2021; 17: 877-892. doi: 10.2217/fon-2020-0655

15. Redman JM, Gibney GT, Atkine MB. Advances in immunotherapy for melanoma. BCM Med. 2016; 14: 20-31. doi: 10.1186/ s12916-016-0571-0

16. Keating GM. Panitumumab: A review of its use in metastatic colorectal cancer. Drugs. 2010; 28: 1059-1078. doi: 10.2165/11205090-000000000-00000

17. Greg LB, Figgitt DP. Rituximab. Drugs. 2012; 63: 803-843.

18. McKeage K, Pery CM. Trastuzumab: A review of its use in treatment of metastatic breast cancer overexpressing HER2. Drugs. 2002; 62: 209-243. doi: 10.2165/00003495-200262010-00008

19. Galizia G, Lieto E, De vita F, et al. Cetuximab, a chimeric human mouse anti-epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody, in the treatment of human colorectal cancer. Oncogene. 2007; 26: 3654-3660. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1210381

20. Kazazi-Hyseni F, Beijnen JH, Schellens JHM. Bevacizumab. Oncologist. 2010; 15: 819-820. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2009-0317

21. Cordo V, Van der Zwet JC, Cante-Barrett K, Pieters R, Meijerink JP. T- cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia: A road map to targeted therapies. Blood Cancer Discov. 2021; 2: 19-31. doi: 10.1158/2643- 3230.BCD-20-0093

22. Broccoli A, Argnani L, Zinzani PL. Peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Focus on novel agents in relapsed and refractory disease. Cancer Treatment Rev. 2017; 60: 120-129. doi: 10.1016/j.ctrv.2017.09.002

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