Where Is Research Today on CLL Vaccines?

Please remember the opinions expressed on Patient Power are not necessarily the views of our sponsors, contributors, partners or Patient Power. Our discussions are not a substitute for seeking medical advice or care from your own doctor. That’s how you’ll get care that’s most appropriate for you.

Andrew Schorr:

So Beth with wrote in and wanted to know is there work going on on a CLL vaccine? 

Dr. Furman:

So we've been playing with CLL vaccines for at least the past 25 years, and a lot of these vaccines were originally designed to be what we call anti-idiotype, meaning they were directed against the antibody made by the cell itself.  Unfortunately, a lot of those vaccines have not proven effective, and we've gone through a lot of different iterations.  We're still trying, and hopefully one day we will have better success. 

Right now, a lot of our current research is focused on not so much the target that the vaccine should be against but ways to make the vaccine more effective.  Things like using PD-1 inhibitors, which can actually make the tumors more apparent to the immune system.  Or using things that can actually enhance the presentation of the actual vaccine to the immune system, and that includes everything from idelalisib (Zydelig) and ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to other different molecules that may actually make it more readily apparent. 

Now, we do also have some new targets like ROR1, which may prove to be very exciting and interesting, but this is still all very far away from anything that will be approvable.

Please remember the opinions expressed on Patient Power are not necessarily the views of our sponsors, contributors, partners or Patient Power. Our discussions are not a substitute for seeking medical advice or care from your own doctor. That’s how you’ll get care that’s most appropriate for you.