Scientists are working on vaccines that train cells to see tumors as foreign, in hopes of one day making breast cancer preventable
. Breast cancer accounts for a third of cancer cases in women and kills 43,000 people annually.
That’s easier said than done, however, and this type of vaccine may be at least a decade or so away. Cancer cells are normal cells that have picked up aberrant genetic messages to start dividing out of control. Targeting them may make intuitive sense, but it’s very difficult to identify the specific abnormalities that cancer cells pick up, since they’re often tightly woven with non-cancerous features, like receptors and other proteins the normal cell needs.
At the Mayo Clinic, Knutson and Dr. Amy Degnim, professor of surgery at Mayo, began working on a breast cancer vaccine in 2015, focused on the other end of the breast cancer spectrum. They recently began testing it in women with an early form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS.
Other recent advances have also nudged researchers one step closer to a truly preventive breast cancer vaccine. Scientists have gained a more detailed view of how, exactly, tumors co-opt the immune system. It turns out that while cancer cells start to grow uncontrollably, they protect themselves from immune cells by throwing up a wall of protection to disguise their presence.
Lynch is hoping such vaccines can change the course of breast cancer, if not for her then for future generations. One of her daughters, who also has the BRCA1 mutation, was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 26 and opted to have both breasts removed. Because of her young age, she also underwent fertility treatments to improve her chances of later getting pregnant. “I want my children and their children to be safe from this disease,” Lynch says.
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