Immunotherapy · 5 min read

Personalised vaccines at CeGaT

Given that my tumor did not contain any of the more common GBM markers like EGFR, it eliminated some of the targeted therapies available and even most of the on-going clinical trials options. I was therefore recommended an experimental personalised peptide vaccine offered by CeGaT. They would analyse my tumor sample, identify the mutations specific to it and design a vaccine to target them. We organised for my tumour paraffin blocks and blood samples to be delivered to them via courier. They ran their proprietary algorithm on my samples and completed the analysis and profiling. Once the results were available, they moved forward with the vaccine production. End to end, it took about 5 months and we made our way to the first vaccinations in Sept'24.

The trips to Germany were quite frequent to start with. We had to go every 4-6 weeks. Once they would start to see an immune response, they would be able to reduce the frequency. With the multiple visits needed, my husband and my mother took turns to accompany me. The travel was hectic of course. After the initial priming phase, the trips needed us to be at the clinic only for a couple of hours - but just reaching either Frankfurt/Munich/Zurich from India and then reaching the clinic in Tübingen would take 16-18 hours. We ended up mostly with short trips around 3-4 days, allowing for some rest between all the travel, especially given the low levels of energy with my chemotherapy running in parallel.

There was a silver lining that made me feel so lucky, and made all the hassle still feel like a lovely experience, every single time. Tübingen was just the most stunning town, with a river flowing right through it, its cobblestone paths, lush green views and historic castles. Most importantly, the clinic itself was an extremely warm space and the doctors and nurses shared that positive energy. I was always happy to see them and get a nice big reassuring hug from my favourite nurse. Once we would be done with the clinic visit, we would spend the rest of the day soaking in all that Tübingen had to offer. I would sit by the river reading a book, take work calls from spots with stunning views, walk around the charming marketplace exploring new cafes and restaurants on every visit. The place brought about a sense of calm in me that was just so unexpected. I didn't for a minute feel like a sick patient; on the contrary, it made me feel more alive than ever.

With my extended chemotherapy, my immune system remained weak initially. We were effectively doing two treatments that were principally conflicting with each other - the chemo was suppressing the immune system and the vaccine relied on it. Even after 9 of the 14 planned vaccinations were administered over 7 months, only a limited immune response could be detected. We were told this could've been due to very low lymphocytes available in my blood to analyse the response which was common due to the several rounds of chemo I'd undertaken. The other more negative possibility was that the vaccine wasn't really working and was unable to generate a strong enough immune response. Of course we hoped with all our hearts that it was the former, and that since chemo was ending within a month of those samples being drawn, things would start to look up.

Since we were left with the last few shots, the doctors also asked us to explore taking a couple of doses of an immunotherapy drug as in certain cases it was seen to boost the immune response and act as more of an adjunct therapy. We discussed the pros and cons with my oncologist and decided to go ahead with 2 small doses before I took my 12th vaccination. Finally things turned around. When I went in for my 13th vaccination, they took my blood samples to once again test my immune response. In Sept'25, we received the best piece of news. They were able to detect a very strong response across several of the peptides in the vaccine. I wouldn't need to travel until Feb'26 and that too only to check the response levels that remained at that point. We would save the last and 14th vaccine for as long as was feasible. We finally ended up taking it in Apr'26 and in fact decided to proceed with the treatment for another batch of vaccines.

In between, we enjoyed several months of just being able to stay home, spend some time with family and also finally taking our first "non-treatment" travel. There was just so much to be thankful for. Just knowing that my body finally had the tools to be able to recognise the cancer cells and fight back when they'd try and return gave me more conviction to live every day with less and less fear.