Rambam and Harvard Medical School are launching a joint research program: a cancer vaccine

The researchers are developing a vaccine in which cells that function as "trackers" indicate to fighting cells the cancer cells and lead to their elimination

On Tuesday of this week, senior researchers in the field of cancer from Harvard Medical School (Boston) and Mambam gathered at Rambam to launch a joint research program under the title "Cancer Vaccine".

This is a bold and innovative direction in the fight against cancer. The research focuses on the creation of "conjugated vaccines" that are injected subcutaneously into the patient and aim to stimulate ("activate") the damaged immune system of cancer patients and make it fight the cancer cells again.

The revolutionary idea was conceived by researchers at Harvard, and when they were looking for research partners, it was decided in Boston to turn to Rambam researchers. The partnership of these two research institutions points to the high global academic-research status enjoyed by the doctors of the hematology department at Rambam and the researchers of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion.

On the edge of the fork, the idea behind the creation of the vaccines: it has been proven that in some types of cancer our immune system "goes out of reset" and thus its ability to deal with the cancer is impaired. One of the components of the immune system that is damaged is that of the population of dendritic cells, which are a kind of "trackers" that show the "warrior" cells, the T cells in our body, the cancer cells. When the dendritic cells are damaged, there is no one to activate the T cells to fight, and the cancer cells thrive. Science has discovered that dendritic cells can be grown outside the body, in the laboratory.

In the current study, shared by Harvard and Rambam, the researchers go one step further: extract white blood cells from a patient's blood, grow them in the laboratory into mature dendritic cells, and bring these cells together (through mechanical adhesion) with cancer cells extracted from the patient. In this way, a "fused cell" is created which actually consists of a mature and functioning dendritic cell and a cancer cell. This fusion makes it possible to "present" the cancer cell to the attacking T cells of the patient.

One of the reasons for the optimism of the researchers is because preliminary results from a joint study in myeloma patients (one of the types of cancer) indicate that such vaccines do cause a significant activation of the immune system against the disease.

The joint study, which already includes several dozen patients in both the US and Israel, will be presented in its entirety at the Rambam gathering and will be attended by the best researchers from both institutions.

The research day will be opened by Prof. Rafi Biar, Director of Rambam and Prof. Ado Perlman, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. The lectures will be given by Professor Jacob Rowe from Rambam, Dr. David Avigan from the Hematology Department at Harvard, Professor Doron Melamed from the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Dr. Irit Avivi from the Hematology Department at Rambam, Dr. Yishai Efran from the Hematology Department at Rambam, Dr. Jacqueline Rosenblatt from the Hematology Department at Harvard and Professor Yoram Ritter from the Faculty of Biology at the Technion. Mayor Yona Yahav will grace the research conference with his presence.