Talking Biotech with Dr. Kevin Folta Attacking Cancers through Neoantigens - Dr. Jackie Douglass
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Sep 20, 2025 Dr. Jackie Douglas, a medical oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins specializing in neoantigens and cancer immunotherapy, dives into the promising world of personalized cancer treatments. She explains how neoantigens, unique to cancer cells, can be targeted for therapy. The discussion includes HLA alleles' roles, challenges like patient variability, and the exciting potential of mRNA vaccines in clinical trials. Douglas emphasizes the need for affordable therapies and shares insights on future advancements, all while maintaining a hopeful outlook for cancer patients.
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HLA Diversity Is A Major Challenge
- HLA allele diversity complicates universal therapies because different alleles bind different peptides.
- Less common alleles need more data and tuned algorithms to predict presented neoantigens.
Personalized mRNA Vaccine Success In Pancreatic Cancer
- An MSK study vaccinated 16 early-stage pancreatic cancer patients with personalized mRNA neoantigen vaccines plus PD-L1 blockade.
- Half mounted neoantigen-specific T-cell responses and those responders showed markedly better three-year recurrence-free outcomes.
Why Some Patients Don’t Respond
- Patient response variability remains a core unknown: some respond dramatically while others do not.
- Identifying and converting non-responders into responders is a central research priority.