AST-VAC2 Vaccine in Patients With Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

This clinical study is looking at a vaccine called AST-VAC2. AST-VAC2 has been designed to potentially help the immune system attack the cancer. This is a new vaccine which looks promising in laboratory studies but it has never been tested in man. Dendritic cells occur naturally in your body as part of the immune system however these dendritic cells have a special role in finding proteins in the body which are associated with cancer and it is hoped that the vaccine will train the immune system to recognise these proteins and attack the cancer. Some cancers tend to have more of a certain type of protein (part of the body's building blocks that make up cells) called 'hTERT' and it has been shown in laboratory studies (and also studies in patients using a similar type of vaccine), that targeting hTERT can lead to destruction of cancer cells by the immune system. AST-VAC2 will target the hTERT protein. Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) is another type of protein. An HLA pre-screening test will be able to show if a person is positive or negative for a specific HLA protein (AST-VAC2 can only work with some types of HLA), as being positive for the protein may mean there is a better chance of the vaccine attacking the cancer. Patients who are positive for the specific HLA type will be asked to consent to the vaccine. Those patients who are negative for the HLA type will not be eligible for the trial.