Florida Times-Union
by Matt Soergel

A Mayo Clinic immunologist in Jacksonville envisions a not-so distant future where vaccines could help stop the relapse of cancer in patients who have already been successfully treated for breast cancer. Keith Knutson’s team of researchers is also trying to develop a preventative vaccine that would be given to healthy women to stop the disease from showing up in the first place. “This is huge, by the way,” he said. “If you had a prevention vaccine for breast cancer, this would be huge.” Multiple studies across the country suggest that immunotherapy could one day treat breast cancer patients. The Mayo research is among those aiming to come up with such treatments. “There are no vaccines yet approved for use for any type of cancer,” said Knutson. “But there will be, probably within the next decade. We hope that some of ours are among them.” Knutson is principal investigator for a Jacksonville team that’s already enrolled women in clinical trials for a vaccine against what he called the “secondary prevention” of breast cancer.

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Context:  Keith Knutson, PH.D. is a Mayo Clinic researcher  with a focus on the immunology and immunotherapy of breast and ovarian cancers. You can read more about his medical research here.

Contact: Kevin Punsky

Tags: Breast Cancer, cancer vaccines, Dr. Keith Knutson, Ovarian Cancer, Uncategorized