Developing vaccines for cancer and COVID-19
How do vaccines work? What are the challenges and opportunities around developing vaccines against cancers not caused by viruses, such as breast cancer and colorectal cancer? How can we harness all of our technology and understanding to create a vaccine for COVID-19? Nora Disis, MD, has made truly seminal contributions to our understanding of vaccines for cancer, and she helped us understand what needs to happen for effective cancer and COVID-19 vaccines to be developed. Dr. Disis is Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean at the University of Washington, and she’s an American Cancer Society Research Professor. 5:18 – On how she is holding up and how she and other researchers are helping out their clinical colleagues 6:37 – How her research has been impacted by the pandemic 8:55 – “We have a lot of projects and we’ve been going at breakneck speed, generating data and generating data…sometimes it’s good to slow down and think about your data rather than jumping on to your next experiment.” 11:45 – How does a vaccine against, for example, the measles work? 16:42 – How vaccines against cancer are different and what challenges are involved in this space 20:18 – The biggest question when developing a vaccine against common cancers not caused by viruses 25:01 – Are there some cancers that are better candidates for a vaccine? 29:30 – On where her team is in the colorectal cancer vaccine space 36:11 – What needs to happen for an effective COVID-19 vaccine to be developed? 42:14 – The impact of ACS funding on her research 45:42 – A message she’d like to share with cancer patients and caregivers