Join an advisory panel to review and guide research which aims to develop a vaccine which can help boost immune responses against metastatic breast cancer.
What’s the title of the study?
Developing novel mRNA vaccines against cancer associated mis-splicing events to enhance breast cancer therapy response
What’s the project about?
Metastatic (secondary) breast cancers can often resist standard treatments such as chemotherapy or endocrine therapy. This can make it hard to find effective drugs to stop the disease progressing as the cancer cells find ways to develop resistance.
However, it is harder for the cancer cells to develop resistance against something that activates the immune system. This strategy is used in immunotherapy, which causes the immune system to be activated by cancer cells. However, this is often less effective for metastatic breast cancer, as the immune system doesn’t recognise the cancer cells.
Researchers want to investigate whether it’s possible to develop a non-personalised vaccine that makes cancer visible to the immune system, so they are killed. They also want to see whether this could help make immunotherapy more effective for people who it doesn’t typically work for.
They’re recruiting a patient advisory group to help review the research design, and help to shape the project if it is funded.
Who’s organising it?
Name of project lead: Rachael Natrajan
Job title: Group Leader
Organisation: The Institute of Cancer Research
Email address: rachael.natrajan@icr.ac.uk
Who can take part?
The group is open to anyone interested in breast cancer research
Why do you want me to be involved?
By joining the group, you can shape the direction of the research by ensuring it reflects the priorities of people affected by breast cancer, and is relevant and accessible.
What will you ask me to do?
The researchers are looking for people to join a patient advisory group to support this project.
This is will initially involve an online focus group on 6 March to review the research proposal. If the project is funded, the group will meet online 1 or 2 times a year, over a term of 1 to 5 years to guide the research.
They’re also planning an in-person day at the research labs in central London to explain more about their work do and how they are trying to make discoveries to improve the lives of breast cancer patients.
How do I get involved?
If you are interested in taking part, or have any questions, please contact Rachel at rachael.natrajan@icr.ac.uk.
When’s the deadline?
20 February 2026
Get involved
Join the advisory group and help shape the research to ensure it's relevant to people affected by breast cancer.