Attributes+of+a+cancer+vaccine+slide+3-1-13

Attributes of a cancer vaccine slide "C:\kurt\storage\CIM Research Folder\DR\2013\3-1-13\slides\Attributes of a cancer vaccine slide 3-1-13.pptx"

Text from slide -- In order to make a cancer vaccine researchers have to decide what to put in it. A minimal cancer vaccine may contain tumor associated antigens which are wild-type non-mutated proteins that are often expressed in tumor cells at high levels. The Rituximab antibody that targets CD20 for lymphomas and the Herceptin antibody that targets HER-2/neu on breast cancer target these tumor associated antigens. A cancer vaccine may also contain tumor specific antigens that are not found in normal cells. These antigens may be more useful for specifically targeting cancer cells. Tumor specific antigens can arise from mutations which commonly occur in tumor cells and often even cause the tumor in the first place. There are many types of mutations that can occur: point mutations, frameshift mutations, chromosomal rearrangements which can fuse two genes together and cause a frameshift mutation, abberant protein modifications such as too many glycosylations as in the MUC1 antigen, etc. The universality of the vaccine is also important. There are many mutations in tumor cells which are very unique to each tumor and would not be observed to be in common among tumors from different individuals. However, bioinformaticians have revealed that there are also many mutations which are recurrent and occur in many different tumors from different individuals. A cancer vaccine should also prevent immune escape. If the vaccine is only comprised of one single antigen, some of the tumor cells may mutate this antigen to avoid immune detection. Therefore, an effective cancer vaccine will likely require the inclusion of several different antigens.

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Antibodies can be used therapeutically to treat cancer once it has developed as evidenced by rituximab against CD20 on B cells to treat lymphomas as well as leukemias and herceptin against HER2/neu to treat breast cancers.

What is the difference between a lymphoma and a leukemia? Lymphomas are closely related to lymphoid leukemias, which also originate in lymphocytes but typically involve only circulating blood and the bone marrow (where blood cells are generated in a process termed haematopoesis) and do not usually form static tumors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphoma