200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year
1 every 2 minutes 38 seconds
548 every day
4,000 every week
16,667 every month
Help to fund research that may lead to a vaccine that will prevent breast cancer
The aim of personalized medicine is to provide the customized treatment likely to work best for each individual. This includes cell-based therapies that are derived from a patient’s own cells or cells from a related or tissue matched donor. Basic research findings contributing to the knowledge of the molecular and cellular basis of immune mediated control of cancer have created opportunities to develop new forms of cell-based therapeutic vaccination. Thus, there has been a paradigm shift from the use of cells and tissues for homologous function to the engineering of cells for non-homologous or improved function. With Dr. Brian Czerniecki, we have been privileged to participate as a cellular vaccine production laboratory for his current trial of engineered dendritic cell in breast cancer (Ductal Carcinoma in situ). This trial has shown positive interim results, including the induction of an immune response again the cancer, and reductions in the extent of disease. The next step will be a larger multi-center trial designed to gather further evidence of the promise of this approach.
Bruce Levine,Ph.D
Associate Professor,
Departement of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Director, Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility
Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania