I was first woman in world to get breast cancer jab – I’ll see my kids grow up

WHEN Jenni Davis found a lump on her breast her worst fears were confirmed. It was cancer.

But in the space of three years, the mum-of-three’s story transformed from one of fear and uncertainty to one of hope.

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Jenni, now 46, became the first woman in the world to receive a groundbreaking breast cancer jab, which it is hoped could one day help eradicate the disease.

The nurse, who is married to Brian, also 46, was given the shot as part of a clinical trial at the Cleveland Clinic in the US, in September 2021.

Jenni, from Lisbon, Ohio, tells Sun Health she now no longer fears her cancer returning or missing out on the happiest moments of her family’s lives.

She cannot wait for her daughters to get a dose, as scientists hope the vaccine will be rolled out within the next decade.

“The fact that I was able to get this and then we have proof that it has worked — I’m just so thankful,” Jenni says.

“I don’t have to worry about it coming back any more and we can really focus on each other, and life and moving forward.

“I expect to live a long, happy life and see my kids get married.”

‘Save many lives’

The vaccine has been in development for the past 20 years, off the back of Dr Vincent Tuohy’s research at the Cleveland Clinic.

It works by training the immune system to attack cancerous tumours when they appear, stopping them from growing in the first place.

Jenni was involved in the first phase 1A trial, which saw women who had finished treatment for early-stage triple-negative breast cancer within the past three years receive the jab. So far, 18 women have had three doses and early results show all have had an immune response.

A second trial began in February, focusing on giving the ­vaccine to cancer-free women who are at high risk of the ­disease and have undergone ­voluntary mastectomies.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month draws to a close, Dr Amit Kumar, of biotech company Anixa Biosciences, which is helping to develop the vaccine, says it has the potential to “save many, many lives”.

“Right now, we’re focused on people like Jenni who’ve had it, who are cancer survivors, who are worried about recurrence,” Dr Kumar tells Sun Health.

“But eventually we want to be able to give it to every woman in the world, so they never have to worry about cancer.”

Scientists echo Dr Kumar’s optimism and it’s hoped doses will be widely available to cancer patients within five years, and to healthy people in the next decade.

Jenni first realised something was wrong when she found a lump in her left breast in February 2018.

An initial biopsy came back negative, but she “knew something wasn’t right” and was diagnosed with the disease in September that year.

Around 55,000 women and 400 men are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK.

Triple-negative breast cancer affects around 15 per cent of all breast cancer patients and is more common in women under 40. Some 40 per cent of women with triple-negative breast cancer see the disease return after treatment, according to a 2019 University of Utah study.

Jenni underwent a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Reconstruction surgery did not go as planned, with doctors forced to remove an implant on her left side as the radiation had thinned her skin too much. “Once they remove this, they can never put one back in,” Jenni says.

She adds: “It was a long, difficult process, but the timing for me to get the vaccine — it was such a short window for me to be eligible for it — it just worked out perfectly.

“All of the things I thought were devastating at the time, I’m now able to put in perspective — I might not have been eligible if things had gone differently.”

Wipe out disease

Like the Covid or flu jab, the vaccine teaches the body’s immune system to recognise and attack cancerous cells.

In the future, it’s hoped that by giving the jab to healthy women, it could wipe out the disease altogether.

Scientists conducting the trials monitored Jenni and other participants for signs their immune systems were reacting.

The vaccine targets a protein called αa-lactalbumin, which appears on triple-negative breast cancer cells or when a woman is lactating.

It trains the immune system to attack the cancer cells so they can’t grow.

The company reported that immune T-cell responses specific to a-lactalbumin were found.

But it admitted it was too early to determine whether the elicited response could effectively prevent cancer.

In theory, after receiving the jab, the immune system would eliminate cancerous cells before they become tumours.

It is hoped lessons from the trials can be used to help develop vaccines for other types of cancer too. Researchers say the clinic is already making progress with an ovarian cancer vaccine.

Dr Kumar adds: “I would love to be able to one day say that we have eliminated breast cancer, just like polio or smallpox.”

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