Are we close to a cancer vaccine?

Cancer is a disease that will affect 1 in 5 people in our lifetime, and it’s estimated that around 20 million people worldwide will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2025.

But how might a vaccine help in the treatment of cancer?

Numerous trials began testing the viability of cancer vaccines in 2024, including one for melanoma and another for lung cancer.

With all the promise that these new cancer vaccine trials bring for cancer patients, we explore the different ways in which vaccines could work within the body, and how the time at which future vaccines are administered may vary according to the cancers they are targeting.

This week on the Inquiry we’re asking: Are we close to a cancer vaccine?

Presenter: Tanya Beckett
Producer: Matt Toulson
Researcher: Katie Morgan
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott
Studio Director: Craig Boardman

Contributors:

Meredith McKean, director of Melanoma and Skin Cancer Research for Sarah Cannon Research Institute at Tennessee Oncology

Samra Turajlic, Chief Investigator of translational studies into melanoma and kidney cancer at the Francis Crick Institute and Professor at the Institute of Cancer Research

Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez, professor in the department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Patrick Ott, Clinical Director at Melanoma Disease Center at the Dana-Farber Institute