Vaccine Therapy Technology
Vaccine therapies have been used for over one hundred years helping our immune system fight off infections, but not until recently has the scientific community gained clearer insight into the intricate physiology of the immune system and how to manipulate it.
The human immune system is a complex system that has evolved over time to recognize self from non-self. This system is able to recognize, neutralize and destroy foreign or invading organisms such as bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. The immune system is also able to remove abnormal cells that may have been damaged or modified by invading agents such as viruses.
Scientists have found that the immune system removes foreign organisms through a complicated system of specific and non-specific activations triggered by protein markers, or antigens, found on the surface of foreign organisms. After recognizing an infectious organism, the immune system mounts a system wide attack and memorizes that organism's specific antigen in an attempt to streamline the immune response to subsequent invasions by the same organism. It is widely accepted that vaccines are effective in protecting the human body from infectious diseases such as hepatitis, tetanus, polio and smallpox. More recent insights have sparked heightened interest in immunization against other diseases including cancer.
Unlike infectious diseases, however, cancerous cells are not foreign to the human body and are detected by the immune system as "self." Thus, the immune response is not activated. A great deal of research is being conducted to develop vaccine technologies to fight cancer.
The immune system is complex and various aspects of the immune system have yet to be deciphered. Researchers have found the use of vaccines based on non-specific activators such as BCG, TNF, IFN, and IL-2 have little benefit for patients with advanced cancer. Researchers have also had little success with specific activation of the immune system using tumor associated antigens/proteins, short peptides, polysaccharides, whole tumor cell lysates and irradiated tumor cells. Though these tumor specific vaccines have shown benefit in some animal models, they have not shown therapeutic benefit in clinical trials.
The reasons trials using specific and non-specific activators have failed are multiple and complex. Non-specific activators can activate the immune system in a non-specific manner, but this does not translate to therapeutic benefit because the immune system still does not recognize the tumor cells as "non-self." This lack of recognition allows the cancer cells to evade the immune system and grow and multiply in an uncontrolled fashion. Specific activation of the immune system has also failed to generate therapeutic benefit because the signals presented to the immune system have been inadequate to elicit a specific response.
Vaxco Pharmaceuticals has made an important scientific breakthrough. We have developed tumor antigens that are highly immunogenic and will be recognized by the immune system as foreign. By looking at antigen binding to T-cell receptors, we have been able to design immunogenic antigens that can elicit an anti-tumor immune response.
Through the scientific research of our founder and CEO Raj Sadasivan, M.D., Ph.D., and the help of sophisticated computer software, we have been able to use this breakthrough to develop vaccines against many different cancers and we are excited about the prospect of using this technology in the prevention setting as well.