New Yorkers Come Together to Discover New Ways to Fight Cancer

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) announced today the launch of the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative (CVC), a unique research program that should dramatically improve how cancer vaccines are developed. The collaboration involves an unprecedented network of investigators from six local New York medical centers all working together to conduct a series of early-stage clinical trials on cancer vaccines. The goal of these trials is to learn how to develop vaccines that effectively immunize against cancer. The CVC was launched at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Symposium in New York.

"Over the last decade, major strides have been made in our understanding of the immune system's response to cancer. These discoveries have resulted in the widely held view that vaccines are very important to the future of cancer treatment," said Jill O'Donnell-Tormey, Ph.D., Executive Director, Cancer Research Institute. "However, we still have not learned how to immunize against cancer so that the vaccination yields a sustained and active immune response. To achieve this goal, CRI and LICR realized science needs to take the next step in the academic exploration of cancer vaccine therapy and created the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative."

The Cancer Vaccine Collaborative will test vaccines for several cancer types, including melanoma, sarcoma, non-small cell lung, ovarian, prostate and bladder cancers, all of which share another New York City connection, the cancer/testis antigen NY-ESO-1. Discovered by a team of scientists at the Ludwig Branch in New York and Weill Cornell Medical Center, NY-ESO-1 is a special type of marker found almost exclusively in cancer cells.

In certain tumors, NY-ESO-1 can become abnormally expressed, acting as a highly specific target for immune cells to attack. Although antigens do not elicit a strong enough response to destroy all tumors on their own, the hope is that vaccinating cancer patients with NY-ESO-1 can help the immune system finish the job.

The Cancer Vaccine Collaborative trials are designed to deliver vaccines by different methods and formulations, but all of them will target the NY-ESO-1 antigen.

The Cancer Vaccine Collaborative is the only working research model of its kind. Unlike conventional, stand-alone vaccine trials--where data from one trial are often incomparable to data from another because of uncontrolled variables between the two--CVC investigators will use standardized tests to evaluate different ways to deliver the same vaccine agent. This standardized methodology and data collection will allow for direct comparison with other trials in the CVC and help the researchers understand why certain vaccine strategies might result in a more robust immune response while others might not. Moreover, the studies will be coordinated and done in parallel with each other rather than sequentially, potentially speeding up the time in which promising discoveries can end up helping patients.

"Testing different vaccine strategies at one time will allow us to more quickly identify the most promising anti-cancer therapies," said Dr. Eric Hoffman, Director of Clinical Trials at LICR. "And because all the research is done using the same methods and techniques, the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative will ensure that data from one trial site can be readily and confidently compared to that of another site."

Investigators at the following hospitals that are participating in the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative include Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York University Cancer Institute, New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, and, in Buffalo, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

"New York is home to some of the leading medical research centers in the country. Initiating the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative in New York allows us to bring together clinical investigators in our area to work in tandem toward a shared goal," said Dr. O'Donnell-Tormey. "As the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative matures we expect that the scope of the program will be expanded to include research centers in other major metropolitan areas."

The Cancer Research Institute was founded in 1953 to foster the science of cancer immunology, which is based on the premise that the body's immune system can be mobilized against cancer. This field, which CRI helped pioneer and develop, has been recognized throughout the world as offering great hope for the ultimate prevention and treatment of human cancer. The Institute has supported more than 2,500 scientists and clinicians at leading universities and research centers worldwide. All funding decisions are made by its Scientific Advisory Council consisting of 64 of the world's leading immunologists, including 4 Nobel Laureates, 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 23 members of the Academy of Cancer Immunology.

The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research is a not-for-profit global research organization that addresses the complex nature of cancer through a range of scientific disciplines. More than 850 scientists and support staff conduct basic and clinical research at the Institute, focusing on genetics, tumor immunology, and cell biology and signaling. The research of the Institute is carried out at ten Branches around the world and in cooperation with an international network of affiliated scientists and clinicians. Convinced that the discovery process has not run its course until promising laboratory findings are tested in the clinic, the Institute is an active sponsor of its own clinical trials.