Mayo Clinic ovarian cancer treatment program
Mayo Clinic Ovarian Cancer SPORE
This program tests a new vaccine and other approaches to help people with high-grade serous ovarian cancer live longer and respond better to treatments.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Mayo Clinic Rochester NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Rochester, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11178526 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
This Mayo Clinic program runs several projects that aim to improve treatment for ovarian cancer patients, including a phase II vaccine trial and studies to make existing drugs work better. One project offers a dendritic-cell vaccine made from a patient's immune cells and loaded with folate receptor alpha peptides to boost a specific immune response, following a phase I result where 39% of patients were recurrence-free at 49 months. Other projects study why PARP inhibitor drugs sometimes stop working and look for ways to overcome that resistance, using lab work and patient tumor samples. The program also shares thousands of stored tumor samples to speed research and is based at Mayo Clinic in Rochester with multidisciplinary teams running clinical and laboratory studies.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal candidates are people with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, especially those eligible for clinical trials at Mayo Clinic or with tumors expressing folate receptor alpha.
Not a fit: Patients with other cancer types, those unable to travel to Mayo Clinic, or those whose tumors do not express the targeted markers may not receive benefit from the program.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to a vaccine and improved drug strategies that lower recurrence and extend survival for ovarian cancer patients.
How similar studies have performed: A phase I trial of the same dendritic-cell vaccine showed promising long-term recurrence-free survival in a subset of patients, but most elements remain experimental and are now being tested in larger studies.
Where this research is happening
Rochester, United States
- Mayo Clinic Rochester — Rochester, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Kaufmann, Scott H — Mayo Clinic Rochester
- Study coordinator: Kaufmann, Scott H
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.