Scottish patient becomes Europe’s first to receive individualised neoantigen therapy for gastro-oesophageal cancer

Jennifer Robertson. Credit: University of Dundee/PA Wire

By Ella Pickover, PA Media

A woman from Scotland has become the first patient in Europe to receive a personalised cancer vaccine for gastro-oesophageal cancer.

Jennifer Robertson said that she is “excited and privileged” to be on the early-stage clinical trial for the vaccine.

The 59-year-old, from Broughty Ferry near Dundee, is the fifth person in the world to receive the individualised neoantigen therapy.

The jab, created by pharmaceutical companies Moderna and MSD, is personalised for each patient taking it, and it uses the similar technology to the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine.

Scientists make the vaccine after analysing the biological make-up of tumours to find potential targets for the immune system to attack.

Robertson will receive up to nine doses of the personalised treatment, alongside traditional treatments of surgery and chemotherapy.

Tayside Cancer Centre, a University of Dundee and NHS Tayside facility, is one of 38 cancer centres around the world running the early-stage trial of the mRNA therapy for people with gastric and gastro-oesophageal cancer.