Date Time Personalized vaccine produces long-lasting anti-tumor response in patients with melanoma, study shows Four years after patients with melanoma were treated with a personalized cancer vaccine, the immune response kindled by the vaccine remains robust and effective in keeping cancer cells under control, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard report in a new study. The findings, published online today by the journal Nature Medicine, demonstrate the staying power of the immune response generated by the vaccine, known as NeoVax, which works by targeting specific proteins on each patient’s tumor cells. The researchers found that, nearly four years after vaccination, the patients’ immune system cells were active not only against tumor cells with those distinctive proteins, but also spread to other proteins found in those patients’ tumor cells.