Dr.Scher was involved in cancer vaccines previously. He was involved in Progenics and Cytogen's cancer vaccine deevelopment in 2002.
"This clinical trial is the first of a series designed to elicit potent and durable immune responses to PSMA, a protein that is highly expressed on prostate cancer cells," said Howard I. Scher, M.D., chief, Genitourinary Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. "The new vaccine contains a recombinant PSMA protein that mimics the form of PSMA found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. As PSMA is uniquely found on the surface of prostate cancer cells and its expression increases with disease progression, it provides a highly attractive target for cancer immunotherapy."