Scientists at the University of Oxford are designing OvarianVax, a vaccine which teaches the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer. The team will receive up to £600,000 for the study over the next three years to support lab research into the vaccine.

In this study, the Cancer Research UK-funded scientists will establish the targets for the vaccine. They will find out which proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells are most strongly recognised by the immune system and how effectively the vaccine kills mini-models of ovarian cancer called organoids.

If this research is successful, work will then begin on clinical trials of the vaccine. The hope is that in the future, women could be offered this vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer in the first place.

There are around 7,500 new ovarian cancer cases every year in the UK, and it is the 6th most common cancer in women. There is no current screening programme for the disease and some women with inherited copies of altered genes are at higher risk.

Ovarian cancer risk is up to 65% higher in women with altered BRCA1 genes, and up to 35% higher in women with altered BRCA2 genes, compared to women without these gene alterations. Currently, women with BRCA1/2 alterations are recommended to have their ovaries removed by the age of 35, which means that they can’t have children in the future, and they experience early menopause.

Director of the Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford and lead for the OvarianVax project, Professor Ahmed Ahmed, said: ‘We need better strategies to prevent ovarian cancer. Currently women with BRCA1/2 mutations, who are at very high risk, are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterwards. At the same time, many other cases of ovarian cancer aren’t picked up until they are in a much later stage.

‘Teaching the immune system to recognise the very early signs of cancer is a tough challenge. But we now have highly sophisticated tools which give us real insights into how the immune system recognises ovarian cancer.

‘OvarianVax could offer the solution to prevent cancer, firstly in women at high risk but also more widely if trials prove successful. Thanks to this funding, our research can take a big step forward towards a viable vaccine for ovarian cancer.’

Previous research by Professor Ahmed and his team at the University of Oxford has found that immune cells from ovarian cancer patients “remember” the tumour. Building on this research, the scientists will train the immune system to recognise over 100 proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer, known as tumour-associated antigens.

They will find out which of these antigens trigger the immune system to recognise and kill cells which are becoming ovarian cancer. Tissue samples from the ovaries and fallopian tubes of people with ovarian cancer will be used to recreate the early stages of ovarian cancer in the study.

The researchers will work with patient and public representatives to establish who would be willing to take the vaccine, who could benefit most from it, how it could be administered and how to ensure it is taken up by as many eligible women as possible, if it is successful in future clinical trials.

It will still take many years for the vaccine to reach a point where it is widely available to women at risk of ovarian cancer. However, this funding is an exciting step towards a world where doctors can prevent ovarian cancer at an early stage, rather than treating it once the disease has already taken hold.

OvarianVax is one of several projects funded under Cancer Research UK’s prevention research strategy, which aims to use discoveries in the lab to find more precise ways to prevent cancer.

Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell, said: ‘Projects like OvarianVax are a really important step forward into an exciting future, where cancer is much more preventable. This funding will power crucial discoveries in the lab which will realise our ambitions to improve ovarian cancer survival.

‘OvarianVax builds on the exciting developments in vaccine technology during the pandemic. This is one of many projects which we hope will give women longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.’