Cancer Vaccines: Milestones, Promises, Opportunities, and Challenges
Continuing Education Credits
This course covers milestones, promises, opportunities, and challenges of cancer vaccines in the world today, describing both preventive and therapeutic cancer vaccines in detail. Technology, current research, and development are covered.
Objectives
- Describe the leading types of cancer vaccines.
- Explain the mechanism of action of cancer vaccines.
- Distinguish preventive from therapeutic cancer vaccines.
- Explain the importance of cancer neoantigen(s) in designing personalized mRNA vaccines.
- Discuss an awareness of the challenges of cancer vaccine efficacy.
Course Outline
- Vaccine Overview
- Vaccine Overview
- Vaccine Overview: Summary by Vaccine Types
- Vaccine Overview: Summary by Vaccine Types, continued
- True or False: Live attenuated vaccines contain weakened forms of disease-causing germs.
- True or False: Adenovirus vector-based vaccines are dangerous because there is a chance for people who have received the vaccine to suffer from adenoviral infection.
- The mRNA vaccines are useful as:
- Cancer Molecular Tricks to Escape Immune Surveillance
- Cancer Molecular Tricks to Escape Immune Surveillance
- True or False: Classical Class I HLA is responsible for facilitating effective antigen presentation to activate Killer T cells.
- True or False: Non-Classical Class I HLA are crucial for enabling NK cells to recognize cells that must be eliminated.
- Cancer cells use three major molecular schemes to minimize the chance for them to be recognized by host immune cells. All of the following are potential schemes except:
- Preventive Cancer Vaccines: Human Papillomavirus Vaccine
- Human Papillomavirus Vaccine
- HPV Vaccine: Mechanism of Action
- HPV Vaccine: Efficacy
- True or False: All three types of HPV vaccines cover HPV 16 and HPV 18.
- True or False: Vaccine cross-protection phenomenon refers to immune protection going beyond molecular targets targeted by the vaccine.
- All of the following statements about HPV vaccine mechanisms of action are true, except:
- Preventive Cancer Vaccines: Hepatitis B Virus Vaccine
- Hepatitis B Virus Vaccine
- True or False: The first generation of hepatitis B vaccine based on carrier-derived blood plasma product was replaced by a non-blood product out of concern of potential bloodborne pathogen concerns.
- True or False: Aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH)3, was incorporated into the second-generation non-blood-based hepatitis B vaccine with the intent of making the vaccine more effective at producing a powerful immune response.
- What is TWINRIX?
- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: A Tale of Three Vaccines
- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: A Tale of Three Vaccines
- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: Vaccine Against Prostate Cancer
- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: Vaccine Against Bladder Cancer
- Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: Vaccine Against Melanoma
- True or False: Sipeucel-T vaccine introduces prostatic acid phosphate (PAP) to patient-derived dendritic cells.
- True or False: BCG is used to treat late-stage bladder cancer.
- True or False: T-VEC is a therapeutic vaccine that treats late-stage melanoma.
- In addition to cancer preventive vaccines, there are also FDA-approved therapeutic cancer vaccines for cancer treatment. These include vaccines against all of the following, except:
- The Basics of Messenger RNA Technology
- The Basics of Messenger RNA Technology
- True or False: The mRNA delivery challenge was solved with the innovative lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology, which protects mRNA from destruction by RNAse.
- True or False: Pseudouridine protects mRNA from nuclease destruction in addition to minimizing immunogenicity by the host immune system to remove and destroy exogenously introduced mRNA.
- The idea of using mRNA to express desired proteins to solve medical issues has been around for decades. The process was met with three major challenges, all of which are mentioned here, except for:
- MRNA Cancer Vaccines: A Developing Story
- mRNA Cancer Vaccines: A Developing Story
- True or False: The mRNA cancer vaccine instructs dendritic cells to make cancer-specific neoantigens to train cytotoxic T cells (CTL) for the recognition and destruction of cancer cells.
- True or False: The MSKCC-BioNTech pancreatic cancer vaccine successfully delayed tumor relapse by 18 months, based on data collected 18 months post-vaccination.
- The success of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines has significantly boosted confidence in the design and building of mRNA-based therapeutic cancer vaccines. Two such vaccines are:
- Cancer Vaccine Research and Development: Challenges and Opportunities
- Cancer Vaccine Research and Development: Challenges and Opportunities
- True or False: Malignant tumor cells are the only cells found in a tumor.
- True or False: Cancer stem cells make cancer cells more aggressive in proliferation and metastasis.
- The most challenging aspect of cancer vaccine development is the identification of cancer-specific neoantigens. Which of the following statements is true?
- References
- References
Additional Information
Level of Instruction: Intermediate
Intended Audience: Medical laboratory scientists, medical laboratory technicians, pathology residents, MLS students, and other health care personnel who have an interest in this subject matter.
Author Information: Dr. Nancy Liu-Sullivan served as a Senior Research Scientist with a specialty in cancer genomics and drug discovery prior to joining the biology faculty at the College of Staten Island (CSI), City University of New York (CUNY), teaching Immunology, Radiation Biology, and General Biology, in addition to mentoring students in cancer research. Dr. Liu-Sullivan is also the author of MediaLab’s CE courses titled "Hallmarks and Signaling of Cancer Cell" and "HLA and Cancer
Immunotherapy".
Reviewer Information:
Dr. Julie Ann West is certified by the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) as a Medical Laboratory Scientist (MLS) and as a Specialist in Microbiology (SM). In addition, Dr. West has earned a PhD in Public Health - Epidemiology Specialization (emphasis on infectious disease) - and is Certified in Public Health (CPH) by the National Board of Public Health Examiners. Dr. West is experienced as a Technical Specialist in Microbiology and Molecular specialties, Safety Officer, Educator, and Lead in the Veterans Administration Healthcare System, and has prior experience as an Administrative Laboratory Director.
Kanan Patel oversees operations at the cell therapies manufacturing facility in Hackensack University Medical Center, NJ, serving as its manager. She holds a Bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Rutgers University, with a background spanning over 25 years in clinical and pathology laboratory operations and compliance. With nearly 4 years dedicated to the field of cellular therapies, her current role emphasizes managing cellular processing operations and educational opportunities for students.
Course Description: This course covers milestones, promises, opportunities, and challenges of cancer vaccines in the world today, describing both preventive and therapeutic cancer vaccines in detail. Technology, current research, and development are covered.