The End of Breast Cancer? Learn About The Vaccine for Breast Cancer And Who Is Driving It

The stats about breast cancer are widely shared and equally alarming – one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.  October is breast cancer awareness month, but what if we could end the deadly disease with a vaccine for breast cancer? The Cancer Vaccine Coalition doesn’t want to raise awareness about breast cancer, it wants to find a cure by helping your body fight the disease naturally and find less invasive treatments. Learn about how the Cancer Vaccine Coalition started, who is involved, and how a vaccine for breast cancer can (and is) helping women around the world. 

Learn More About The Vaccine for Breast Cancer

Who Is Behind The Vaccine for Breast Cancer?

Former NBC reporter and founder of the Cancer Vaccine Coalition, Kristen Dahlgren, with Executive Director of the UW Medicine Cancer Vaccine Institute, Dr. Kiran Dhillon.

The Cancer Vaccine Coalition

The Cancer Vaccine Coalition is a nonprofit organization with a mission to accelerate the development of a breast cancer vaccine by uniting leading researchers from top institutions. The coalition also aims to raise awareness about a vaccine for breast cancer, get patients to participate in clinical trials, and engage women who are currently fighting the disease. Ultimately a breast cancer vaccine would immunize women patients and prevent them from getting breast cancer in the first place – and this coalition wants to make that a reality in the next 5-10 years.

How Did It Start?

Founder of the Cancer Vaccine Coalition, Kristen Dahlgren, along with advisor and physician-oncologist Dr. Nora Disis.

Award-winning journalist and former news correspondent at NBC Kristen Dahlgren was an ambitious woman living her dream of traveling the world, connecting with others, and making an impact by reporting on important issues when she noticed a dent in one of her breasts. She knew from a previous story she covered that breast cancer doesn’t always show up as a hard lump. Upon being tested, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Her recovery has been complicated and her fear of recurrence is ever-present as is with most survivors. Upon meeting Dr. Nora Disis, she learned about her work on a vaccine for breast cancer. Disis asked Kristen, “Can you imagine a world where no one would die of breast cancer because of a vaccine?” Kristen realized she could make this pipedream a reality. “The time is now,” she says.

Fast forward and now she has created the Cancer Vaccine Coalition.

Together, these bold women want to accelerate breast cancer vaccine developments so that we can find a breast cancer vaccine in the next 5-10 years.

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The Breast Cancer Vaccine 

How Does It Work?

The vaccine targets a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) to see if it generates an immune response to the protein. 

HER2 is found on the surface of many cells, but in as many as 30% of breast cancers, HER2 is overproduced by as much as a hundred times the amount seen in normal cells. These “HER2-positive” cancers tend to be more aggressive and more likely to recur after treatment. However, the overproduction of HER2 also triggers an immune reaction that can be beneficial. 

Specifically, patients with HER2-positive breast cancers who mount a type of immune response called cytotoxic — or cell-killing — immunity are less likely to see their cancer recur after treatment and have longer overall survival than those who do not mount such an immune response.

Source: https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/breast-cancer-vaccine-safely-generates-anti-tumor-immunity

Success Stories

66 women who had metastatic cancer were enrolled in a cancer vaccine study. The women that enrolled either had completed a course of treatment and were in either remission or only had one slow-growing tumor in a bone. They were given injections and followed for 3 to 10 years. Half of these patients were expected to die within 5 years of treatment. 

“We’ve now followed these women for ten years and 80% of them are still alive,” Disis noted.

Scientists and researchers were encouraged by the first clinical trials. The vaccine had no harmful effects on the women and showed promising results.

Two of the hospitals in the coalition are doing a joint trial. Roswell Park and the University of Washington have an upcoming trial on metastatic, triple-negative breast cancer. They also have another phase two trial with women who have HER-2-positive cancer. The goal is to have a trail going for every subtype of breast cancer so they can help as many women as possible.

We could be on the cusp of an effective breast cancer vaccine, but there is still more to be done.

What Still Needs to Be Done? 

While the vaccine for breast cancer has been effective in treating and prolonging women’s lives with breast cancer, it still hasn’t been proven to prevent women from getting breast cancer in the first place – there is still work to be done. They are working with the FDA to approve the vaccine and make it a reality which would mean more clinical trials and testing to meet all the safety and regulatory requirements. Funding is also an ongoing struggle for Kristen and her team.

Visit the Cancer Vaccine Coalition to donate and give them a proper SHOT to cure and prevent breast cancer.

There is Hope

A lot of people working on cancer treatments are working in their silos and are so focused on their patients that they miss out on important pieces of information. The Cancer Vaccine Coalition aims to bring the best minds together from leading institutes. By bringing together leading experts and sharing their research, we can do so much more. 

A breast cancer vaccine could be a life-saving option for people who have had the disease and want to protect themselves from its reoccurrence or those who are at high risk. And it could be applied to other solid tumor cancers – going beyond breast cancer. 

One person can change the world. Imagine what a few women could do. When talking about the coalition in the TODAY show, Kristen Dahlgren says the conversation has already started to change and she has never felt more driven and determined.  

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