Catherine J. Wu, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA, is a pioneer in research that may result in the development of personalized vaccines to treat cancer.

She is now awarded the Sjöberg Prize, worth one million US dollars, for her work.

“I’m a strong supporter and believer in innovation that comes from academic medicine. To be able to support risk-taking and trying to generate new and disruptive findings, ones that can help build and be impactful for patient care, I think that’s where we hope the support from this prize can go,” says Wu. “I’m speechless, utterly delighted. I appreciate recognizing me, but this also recognizes strong team science and collaboration that has really altered the treatment landscapes for patients. This is something we have developed together, as a group.”

Catherine J. Wu

Catherine J. Wu has focused her research on small mutations in cancer cells, which give rise to tumor neoantigens. These are structures that the immune system’s T cells can recognize as foreign and attack. By sequencing DNA from healthy cells and cancer cells, she was able to identify a cancer patient’s unique tumor neoantigens. She then produced synthetic copies of these, which were injected as a type of vaccine. For some of the patients, this resulted in the immune system’s cells being activated and targeting the tumor cells.

Her breakthrough results were published in an article in Nature in 2017, which describes an initial trial in which six patients with melanoma were vaccinated with patient-specific neoantigens. Since then, Wu and other researchers have continued to further develop this technique. However, development is still at an early stage, so the research funding part of the Sjöberg Prize, 900,000 US dollars, will be of great benefit for continued research.

Catherine J. Wu was born in New York, NY, USA in 1966. She gained her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA in 1994 and now leads the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. She is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.

The Sjöberg Prize

The prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Sjöberg Foundation. The Foundation also provides the funding. The prize was established using a donation from businessman Bengt Sjöberg, who died from cancer in 2017. It is to be awarded to a person or persons who have made decisive contributions to cancer research, and amounts to 100,000 US dollars as a personal prize and 900,000 US dollars as funding for continued research. The Sjöberg Prize 2024 will be presented by the king Carl XVI Gustaf at the Academy’s Annual Meeting on 12 April. The Sjöberg Prize Lecture will be held the same day at Karolinska Institutet.

Photo: Sam Ogden