After trying a cancer vaccine, a 48-year-old father is the only member of his family who does not suffer from it

Kevin Haynes, who has Lynch syndrome and has had an annual colonoscopy since he was 20, lost his father, brother, aunts, uncles and other family members to cancer.

Cancer has cast a long shadow on Kevin Heinke's life.

She is her father;BrotherauntI lost many uncles and other family members to cancer in their 30s and 40s.

Before he died in 2009, Heinck's father investigated his troubling family history and discovered that he was a carrier of Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition that significantly increases the risk of several types of cancer before the age of 50, especially colorectal cancer.

Henke also suffers from Lynch syndrome and has had colonoscopy and endoscopy every two years since he was 20 because of his high risk of cancer.After entering her thirties, she had precancerous growths called polyps or adenomas after each diagnosis.

Heyink, 48, told TODAY.com that while it certainly takes a physical toll, "it also involves a certain level of mental stress.""Especially as I'm getting older and now my brothers have cancer and one of them who was young died from it, it makes me very nervous," she said.

Heyink explains the risks of Lynch syndrome to his four children and tells them it's something they can "take to God in their prayers."While that gives them little comfort, he knows firsthand what it feels like to be constantly alert throughout life.

After his brother's father's generic infection in 2022 and his two brothers looking forward to starting a survey, Hay is resting in microm research.

At the time, Heyink, a police officer in Hamilton, Ontario, was the only man in his family to survive a cancer diagnosis when he came across a cancer vaccine trial for people with Lynch syndrome. And he contacted the research team to see if he could participate.

In January 2023, he made the first of many trips to Houston to attend court.

Train the body to eliminate cancer

There are about one million Lynch syndrome carriers in the world, Dr. Eduardo Vilar Sánchez, one of the test authors and a professor in the Division of Clinical Cancer Prevention at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told TODAY.com.

Although colon cancer is the main type of cancer that people with Lynch syndrome are prone to, researchers now see the condition as "pan cancer syndrome": it increases the risk of endometrial, ovarian, stomach and intestinal cancers, as well as some brain tumors, he explained.

Researchers believe that Lynch syndrome may be one of the reasons that explain the recent increase in cancer rates in young patients, Vilar Sanchez told TODAY.com.

Now, thanks to some advances in biology and technology, the pharmaceutical company Noscom has developed a vaccine that can be trained to recognize specific proteins produced by Lynch syndrome carriers.By harnessing this immune response, vaccines can prevent the development of disease.

So how does it actually work?Cells in our bodies are constantly dividing.Sometimes mistakes are made in our DNA when these cells divide, but normally the body has a system of "parallel repair" to correct those mistakes, Wyler-Sanchez said.

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However, the mutated gene in people with Lynch disease is responsible for an important mechanism to correct these errors.This leads to the creation of unique proteins in the body of people with Lynch disease, which can lead to the development of cancerous or precancerous tumors.

Vilar Sánchez further explained that by using a modified, inactivated version of adenovirus (not mRNA technology), the vaccine trains the body to develop an immune response to these abnormal proteins.Unlike other cancer vaccines that have shown promise in treating the disease, this vaccine is designed purely for prevention, he said.

So, if a person with Lynch syndrome who received the vaccine later develops cancerous cells or precancerous lesions, "the immune system is already trained to recognize these proteins and destroy the cancerous cells," said Villar-Sanchez.

Heyink is one of 45 people with Lynch syndrome who participated in a recent vaccine trial.According to Adipising, all were healthy at the time of trial enrollment and had no signs of cancer, which was confirmed by colonoscopy before and after the trial.

Results of the Phase 1b/2 trial, which was designed primarily to evaluate the safety of the vaccine.Recently published in the journal Nature Medicine, these results show that all participants were able to receive the vaccine safely.And researchers found a significant immune response.This continued for at least a year.

Participants developed fewer symptoms after vaccination, and none developed advanced cancer.

To Heyink, the results were "amazing"

In August 2023, he underwent his routine examination, "for the first time in 20 years, the results were normal," he said."There were no tumors or anything."

Since then, he has had two more colonoscopies with normal results."It's three cases in a row without any improvement in prognosis, which is unbelievable," he said.

According to Vilar Sanchez, the vaccine had some temporary side effects similar to the COVID-19 vaccine, including redness and pain at the injection site, as well as mild fever and general fatigue.

After the first injection, Heyncke said he felt tired after a long day of travel.On the second day, he had a low fever and felt pain.However, after two more injections, in January and May 2024, there were no significant effects.

A rare feeling of hope

Villar-Sánchez said more trials are needed to truly understand the vaccine's effectiveness and make it widely available.But the results are a "hopeful message moving forward," he said, adding that "the energy of the participants in this clinical trial has been encouraging."

Vilar Sánchez says the trial is the fastest to meet the recruitment requirements of any trial he's worked on, and he's received emails from potential participants around the world.

"I attribute it to God's work," Heynink said.“They led me on this path, they gave me this opportunity.”A diagnosis of Lynch syndrome can cause concern, he said, but this test is an example of "hope on the horizon."

in particular,Heyink sees his participation in the trial as a way to participate in the future, just as his father helped him by identifying Lynch syndrome in his family.He said he hopes the vaccine will one day be available to his children and nieces and nephews.

"It's very important for the next generation," she said, and it's reassuring to know that "this can be an option for them and they don't have to worry about getting cancer in the middle of their lives."