Published: 23-03-2024 15:03 | Updated: 25-03-2024 10:50

She is awarded the Sjöberg Prize for laying the foundations of a cancer vaccine

Catherine J. Wu
Catherine J. Wu leads the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is also Professor at Harvard Medical School and member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, USA. Photo: Sam Ogden

Catherine J. Wu, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, USA, is a pioneer in research that may result in the development of personalised vaccines to treat cancer. She is now awarded the Sjöberg Prize, worth one million US dollars, for her work. Catherine J. Wu will give a lecture in Aula Medica at KI on April 12 in connection with the Karolinska CCC Day.

This year’s Sjöberg Prize awards discoveries about how the body’s immune system can be activated and stimulated to fight cancer. These discoveries make it possible to develop vaccines that are personalised to each patient’s unique tumour.

In a not-too-distant future, vaccines of this type could be offered to a large group of patients with types of cancers that are currently difficult or impossible to cure.

“Catherine Wu has been enormously important in moving forward research in this field. She has played a decisive role in making it possible to conduct clinical trials of cancer vaccines for melanoma (skin cancer), pancreatic cancer and lung cancer,” says Urban Lendahl, Professor of Genetics at Karolinska Institutet and Secretary of the Prize Committee.

Please read the full press release on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences website.