Will a Vaccine End Breast Cancer?

There's hope on the horizon when it comes to breast cancer, and it comes in the form of a vaccine. Bret and Veronica talk to a researcher and a patient about results from a clinical trial of a breast cancer vaccine.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've all been affected by cancer throughout our lives, whether
it's a loved one or a friend. But now there's
more hope on the horizon in the form of a vaccine.
Cleveland Clinic, along with the bioscience company Anixa, is getting
positive results from a clinical trial.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Joining us on the cocon News liveline. Is this CEO
of Anixa. I'm At Kumar and one of the first
patients to receive the breast cancer vaccine, Chase Johnson. Thank
you both for joining us on San Diego's Morning News.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Thank you for having us.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Is this a vaccine to prevent breast cancer or is
it for treatment after a diagnosis.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's for both initially, say. The long term vision so
this vaccine is to be able to give it to
women who've never had breast cancer but are concerned with
getting breast cancer in the future to prevent it. But
near term, we're going to be utilizing the vaccine in
a phase two clinical trial that will be used on

(00:54):
women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and
are heading towards their surgery and their interventions. We want
to see if we can impact that cancer before they
have their surgery. And you reduce the tumor burden, so
to speak. It.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
I would assume that the people who get it to
prevent it have a history of it, maybe in their family,
that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Certainly people who have genetic predispositions, you know, some of
the mutations that occur that cause a large percentage of
these women to get breast cancer, and we believe those
women will be the first in line to get the
breast cancer vaccine. Secondly, people who like Chase, who already

(01:36):
had for the negative breast cancer or other forms of
breast cancer and have gone through their journey, will eventually
want to take this vaccine to prevent the recurrence of
the breast cancer in the future. And of course we
believe that this can be used for women who've been
nearly diagnosed with breast cancer and want to have a

(01:59):
more effective treatment that is existing today.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
And one of the first patients to receive the breast
cancer vaccine, Chase Johnson, let us know where you are
in your journey.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Yeah, absolutely so. I have finished conventional treatment and finished
the Phase one trial of the triple negative breast cancer vaccine.
I am coming up on my five year remission date,
which is very exciting. And you may or may not know,
but triple negative breast cancer has a high recurrence rate,
much higher than other breast cancers. So I originally started

(02:29):
looking into the vaccine trial, but I had seen some
good results from like the animal models and things like that,
and I was really focused on preventing recurrence because it
does have such a high rate of recurrence, and I
felt like this vaccine gave me the best shot at
it never coming back. So so far, so good.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
I would imagine that after what you have gone through,
that this has to give you some hope.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
It absolutely does, you know. I think one of the
scary things about in particular triple negative breast cancer is
it's kind of when I when I met with mine
call just originally my medical on cologist, she was like,
you know, it's kind of chemo. If it works, that's great.
If not, we really are running low on options. And
I was very fortunate and that the chemo did work.
I did chemo, radiation, surgery, and then oral chemo, so

(03:14):
it was a prolonged treatment path. But yeah, it gives
a lot of hope when you know, in a lot
of situations there are so I really do truly believe that,
like immuno therapy is the future of oncology.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
What's been a success rate so far in the trial?

Speaker 3 (03:29):
So so far about three quarters of the women in
the trial have had a very strong immune response.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
So will we be able to someday just say, you
know what, nobody's getting breast cancer because we've got this vaccine.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
That's exactly the vision. We've done that well as a
medical community for some infectious diseases like you know, polio
and smallpox, and we would love to be able to
do that for breast cancer. I mean, can you imagine
a world where we just give women shots and they
never have to worry about breast cancer. It'll be quite amazing.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
That really is quite amazing. And one last quick question
for Chase, how will you celebrate five years?

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I think I'm going to book a tropical vacation somewhere.
Oh yes, quite rare.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
But yes, thank you both for joining us today. That
this has been a really interesting conversation, very hopeful conversation.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Thank you for having me all right.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Chase Johnson, breast cancer vaccine recipient. And also I'm at
Kumar from a Nixa, a bioscience company. Thank you so much,