"In Situ Vaccination: A Cancer Treatment a Century in the Making" - Emma Yasinski

This past April, Mount Sinai oncologist Joshua Brody and his team announced a clinical trial that delivers immune modulators directly to the tumor environment that stimulate a patient’s immune system to treat several types of cancer. The approach is called in situ vaccination, and it can take many forms such as a virus or targeted radiation. What they all have in common is that they are delivered directly into a tumor to help the immune system recognize and attack the malignancy and then, ideally, other cancer cells that have metastasized throughout the body. Along with the clinical trial announcement, Dr. Brody and his team published preliminary data showing that 8 out of 11 patients with lymphoma saw their treated tumors shrink, and in three patients even distant, untreated tumors dwindled in response to the in situ vaccine. The results were so promising, says Dr. Brody, that patients in the new trial will receive a checkpoint inhibitor, which he believes will boost the efficacy of the vaccine. In addition to the new trial testing the combination in lymphoma, breast, and head and neck cancer patients, the team is also conducting preclinical studies testing the technique in liver and ovarian cancer.

— Joshua Brody, MD, Director, Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program, The Tisch Cancer Institute, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Hematology, Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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