Research Projects

Cancer vaccines are crucial for saving millions of patients from severe side effects of first-line treatments like surgical interventions, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Existing vaccines are prophylactic, controlling cancerous growth due to viral infections, but they cannot help patients with severe metastatic cancers. Therapeutic cancer vaccines are often overlooked as a solution for a wide range of cancer patients. There are 14 different vaccine platforms, including dendritic cell, whole tumor cell, recombinant, and protein or peptide vaccines. Whole tumor cell vaccines do not require cell culture interventions and genetic manipulations, reducing costs. They are efficient as they expose all tumor antigens and prevent immune evasion of cancer cells. To establish better therapeutic effects, cleverly designed cell carriers and immune modulators are needed. Biomaterial scaffolds like PLGA scaffolds, mesoporous silica rods, and sponge-like cryogels are explored for delivering tumor vaccines, along with immune modulators like GM-CSF, a toll-like receptor 9 agonist, and CpG oligodeoxynucleotide. The FDA has approved a poly lactide-co-glycolic acid (PLGA)-based vaccine, WDVAX, for the first-in-human biomaterial-based vaccine trial in melanoma patients. This research proposal aims to deliver irradiated melanoma cells using an injectable hydrogel prepared using galactoxyloglucan, PST001, which has an inherent anticancer property and immunomodulatory activity.