NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[MolBiol]

Hi LTT,

I am fairly pessimistic also. However, more antigens actually can make a big difference. The antigenic breadth of a vaccine has been formally shown to matter. Take the work towards an HSV-2 vaccine as an example. HSV-2 is not a tiny little virus with a few structural proteins and a few more assorted non-structural elements. People have tried and failed time and again to develop a subunit vaccine for this virus. But an attenuated virus with much greater antigenic breadth has shown complete protection in animal models (unlike the subunit vaccine). The difference has been largely attributed to the number of antigens available to the immune system.

Having said all of that, cancer is not a virus. Cancer survives in the body through a process of immunoediting that shapes the cancer cells into something that can go undetected and unchallenged. The question really is whether or not NWBO has circumvented the countermeasures deployed by cancer cells.