Cancer Vaccine Candidate ImmuneFx Enters Human Study
Prefatory Note
Young cancer victim
The struggle against cancer, a disease that has been reliably detected in humans and other animals as far back as 3000 BC, and which, almost uniquely, continues to strike fear in the human heart, is certainly a horrid and tough opponent. Not for nothing it has been called the Emperor of Diseases. But while the advent of modern medicine in the late 19th century supported by mostly untrammeled scientific research has accelerated the rate of discoveries and cures for many old scourges, including cancer, these victories, encouraging as they are, should not obscure the fact that we are perhaps 500 or, as some have suggested, even 1500 years behind where we ought to be, all thanks to the obstructionist role played throughout this evolution by religion, especially the Christian variety dominating European culture since the fall of the Roman empire and the fading of the science-friendly hellenic world. Even in the 21st century, the medical knowledge lag caused by religious establishmentarians (those who condemned Galileo, for example, were mainstream religious, not fanatics) and today's fundamentalists embedded in the Catholic and Protestant folds, has stirred up ugly controversies, the most notable of them all perhaps the stem cell research kerfuffle.
The battle between conservatives and progressives on this issue cannot be decided within the narrow confines of its suposedly "fair" ethical framework. Those who habitually clamor for the protection of human life at all stages, including from the very moment of conception, are also usually quite blind or utterly supoortive of basic social policies that would greatly improve the lives of countless people, already on this earth, living in poverty. And we are not even going to mention here this crowd's unyielding support for US jingoism and its companion imperialist policies. The monumental suffering, death and destruction caused by these criminal policies leave these people cold. In their ledgers embryos matter, fully formed humans not that much. Especially if they have run afoul of the American empire's rules. So that's the part of the debate that's usually (conveniently) left out by contemporary mainstream ethicists arbitrating the argument. In any case, it's a fair assumption that absent religion's role in blocking or braking the development of science and medicine, an incalculable number of humans and other sentient beings would have been spared the horrors of cancer and similar illnesses. Think about this as we move forward, including the not insignificant fact that still at this stage of the game cancer research still needs to rely on charity campaigns to fully fund many of its leads. Isn't that disgraceful considering the obsene amounts squandered on the military and the criminal wars of no benefit to anyone except the ruling 0.0001%? And yet, despite all these obstacles, the 21st century may be at last the one that buries this damned disease. —P. Greanville
 August 16th, 2019
Morphogenesis ImmuneFx cancer vaccine studies impact on cutaneous melanoma with accessible lesions
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ugust 16th, 2019 – Florida scientists Michael and Patricia Lawman imagine a day when cancer could be treated with a single vaccination, with no debilitating side effects. And these scientists believe that day is coming sooner rather than later. This husband-and-wife Ph.D. team has developed a “cancer vaccine,” which is undergoing clinical trials at Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Center, reported the Tampa Bay Times on August 12, 2019. This vaccine candidate is called ImmuneFx (IFx), which helps train the immune system to identify and destroy cancerous tumor cells. To achieve that goal, ImmuneFx forces those tumor cells to come out of hiding. The cancer vaccine ImmuneFx does this by expressing a bacterial antigen on the surface of a patient’s own tumor cells, IFx primes and educates the immune system to destroy tumor cells throughout the body without harming healthy cells and tissues.  Clara Jacobi, a Dutch woman with a neck tumor excised in 1689. We can only imagine the ordeal and the prognosis. IFx’s ability to prime and present the complete repertoire of tumor antigens to the immune system in such a way that evokes a broad spectrum of immune response including both innate and adaptive immunity. After years of pre-human study, Morphogenesis began testing the vaccine on companion animals with veterinary partners. During a study performed on horses, 77 percent of them showed a significant reduction in cancer tumors. “Cancer cells mutate and change so fast, it can be difficult for the immune system to spot them, said Dr. Patricia Lawman. “So the vaccine uses cell and gene therapy to force those cells to express a specific bacterial antigen on their surface, making them easy for the immune system to identify.” This way, a patient’s immune system can fight off cancer cells on its own, without the help of radiation, chemotherapy or other treatments — and without the harmful side effects that come with them. ImmuneFx is being tested in clinical trials on humans with cutaneous melanoma, one of the most common types of skin cancer. The ImmuneFx vaccine candidate is expected to move onto the second phase of clinical trials in 2020, when it will be administered to a larger group of patients at 3 test sites, including Moffitt. Additionally, the IFx-Hu2.0 vaccine candidate is currently being tested in a small Phase I clinical trial for Stage III/IV unresectable cutaneous melanoma. The company says ‘IFx is a true multi-indication cancer vaccine that effectively combines cell and gene therapy to mobilize multiple components of the innate and adaptive immune systems that target the entire antigenic repertoire of heterologous tumors by maximizing antigen presentation and inter-antigenic epitope spreading in a clinically relevant manner.’ Morphogenesis said they have raised over $27 million in funding for research related to the vaccine and is closing in on another round of nearly $45 million. “It's still too early in the federal regulatory process to tell when the vaccine might be available on a larger scale.” “It takes years to accumulate this information,” she said, “and we have to find funding along the way to keep it going,” Dr. Lawman said.
This essay is part of a series on cultural, scientific and esoteric matters.
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