Spring 2025
By Meg Bor
Upon reading about the cutting-edge cancer vaccine research being led by Dana-Farber’s internationally renowned Catherine Wu, MD, in an issue of the Harvard Gazette, Ron and Carol Beerman seized the opportunity to help accelerate Wu’s novel approach to cancer treatment with a $1 million gift to the Institute to establish the Beerman Family Fund for Cancer Vaccines. Ron is a Harvard Business School alum and founder of Profitmaster Displays, Inc., and Carol is a former educator. Ron says, “With Dana-Farber’s extensive R&D resources and experience, supporting Dr. Wu’s promising work to pioneer personalized cancer vaccines presented an undeniable opportunity in this highest stakes battle against cancer, that we just couldn’t pass up.”
The clinical development of cancer vaccines has been years in the making, and Wu and her team are now working to bring these therapies to life for more patients. In the last decade, there has been a rise in the use of immunotherapy, using the patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. This approach has led to significant disease regression for 25% of patients treated, and Dana-Farber is intent on increasing the proportion of patients for whom these therapies are effective.
“We now recognize that immunotherapy has emerged as a new pillar of cancer care in addition to chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. The Beermans’ support will help us continue to refine and develop these targeted treatments to help improve the lives of many more patients,” says Wu, who is the Lavine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies and chief of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at Dana-Farber. In 2024, Wu was awarded the Sjöberg Prize for her research on immunotherapy as a basis for cancer vaccine development.
Dana-Farber was a pioneer in the development of the first generation of personal cancer vaccines, through efforts by Wu and her team; they are now revolutionizing the field further by developing a next-generation approach known as AMPVax, for Artificial Mini-Proteome Vaccine. AMPVax is designed so that researchers can rapidly, cost effectively, and comprehensively prepare a personal vaccine that includes almost all patient-specific neoantigens—the tumor-specific proteins found in the individual’s cancer tissue. This important work may help speed up the production, reduce the cost, and increase the personalization of cancer vaccines to be more effective in many types of cancers.