The OvarianVax project by Oxford University professors Dr Ahmed Ahmed and Dr Nancy Zaarour’s has received £600,000 of funding from Cancer Research UK to use across three years for a preventative ovarian cancer vaccine.
On average 1,000 women in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, with 60% of the cases found in the later stages of the disease, making them harder to treat. There is currently no screening process. Most at risk are women born with genes, such as the altered BRCA2 gene, which can increase risk by up to 65%.
The current treatment for patients with the altered genes removes their fallopian tubes or ovaries. This eliminates their risk of cancer but stops the women from conceiving naturally. If the vaccine’s clinical trials are successful, these high-risk patients will be the first to benefit.
Dr Ahmed’s project builds on earlier discoveries of the immune cells’ ability to “remember” the tumour. In past years the research involved analysis of 6,000 cells from 16 women, some of whom had cancer. Single cell RNA sequencing allowed scientists to identify new types of fallopian tube cells and notice that some had molecular fingerprints mirrored in individual ovarian cancers – thereby identifying women who are most at risk of ovarian cancer.
OvarianVax will draw from this previous knowledge to use tissue samples from the ovaries and fallopian tubes of people with cancer to recreate the first stages of ovarian cancer. The premise of the research is to train the immune system to recognise over 100 tumour-associated antigens, which are proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer cells. This could increase the ability to prevent the cancer spreading from its earliest stage.
The project benefits from the large breadth of vaccine research which occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. If the research goes to plan, the next step will be advancing to clinical trials.
The researchers involved women with lived experience of ovarian cancer. Ovarian Cancer Action, a charity that has previously given funding to Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, created a workshop in which these women shared their opinions on the new study. Researchers intend to continue working with members of the public to find out how popular the vaccine will be, and people’s preference regarding how to administer it.
Dr David Crosby, head of prevention and early detection research at Cancer Research UK, has made it clear that it will be “many years” before the vaccine can progress to public use. However, the charity’s chief executive, Michelle Mitchell, described funding for OvarianVax as “a really important step forward into an exciting future”. Cancer Research UK aims to help 3 in 4 people survive cancer by 2034.