vaccine test those mutations increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer the idea is to kill very early abnormal cells before they cause problems she likens it to periodically weeding a garden or erasing a whiteboardothers are developing vaccines to prevent cancer in people with precancerous lung nodules and other inherited conditions that raise cancer riskvaccines are probably the next big thing in the quest to reduce cancer deaths said dr steve lipkin a medical geneticist at new yorks weill cornell medicine who is leading one effort funded by the national cancer institute were dedicating our lives to thatpeople with the inherited condition lynch syndrome have a 60 to 80 lifetime risk of developing cancer recruiting them for cancer vaccine trials has been remarkably easy said dr eduardo vilarsanchez of md anderson cancer center in houston who is leading two governmentfunded studies on vaccines for lynchrelated cancerspatients are jumping on this in a surprising and positive way he saiddrugmakers moderna and merck are jointly developing a personalized mrna vaccine for patients with melanoma with a large study to begin this year the vaccines are customized to each patient based on the numerous mutations in their cancer tissue a vaccine personalized in this way can train the immune system to hunt for the cancers mutation fingerprint and kill those cellsbut such vaccines will be expensiveyou basically have to make every vaccine from scratch if this wasnt personalized the vaccine could probably be made for pennies just like the covid vaccine said dr patrick ott of danafarber cancer institute in bostonthe vaccines under development at uw medicine are designed to work for many patients not just a single patient tests are underway in early and advanced breast cancer lung cancer and ovarian cancer some results may come as soon as next yeartodd pieper 56 from suburban seattle is participating in testing for a vaccine intended to shrink lung cancer tumors his cancer spread to his brain but hes hoping to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from nursing school next yeari have nothing to lose and everything to gain either for me or for other people down the road pieper said of his decision to volunteerone of the first to receive the ovarian cancer vaccine in a safety study 11 years ago was jamie crase of nearby mercer island diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer when she was 34 crase thought she would die young and had made a will that bequeathed a favorite necklace to her best friend now 50 she has no sign of cancer and she still wears the necklaceshe doesnt know for sure if the vaccine helped but im still here