Experimental Skin Cancer Vaccine Developed in Tampa Saves Woman’s Life
In a year, Vivian Quinones has gone from working with Moffitt Cancer Center as an employee of a local blood bank to being a patient there. “Vivian was diagnosed with a rare skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma. This is rare cancer. It’s one of the more aggressive cancers that we deal with,” explained Dr. Andrew Brohl, an oncologist who treats Quinones at Moffitt Cancer Center.
But there was hope. A vaccine was developed by Bay Area researchers at Morphogenesis, Inc., a UF startup and UF Innovate | Sid Martin Biotech alum. “We enrolled her in a clinical trial to test a new investigational product in which we were injecting this product into one of the tumors to elicit an immune response,” offered Dr. Brohl. Her condition quickly improved. “In a matter of a month, one of the tumors had reduced 100%, the other one went down 40%,” shared Quinones.
One person who was thrilled to hear about Quinones’ success was Dr. Patricia Lawman, the CEO of Morphogenesis. “When I quit crying, and one of the things that struck me is this lady was so young and that she was doing so much good for other people so that’s what really touched my heart is that you never know when you do something that’s good what the ripple effect will be, and I think that made me really emotional as well,” said Dr. Lawman.
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