News
Oncode Accelerator Demonstrator Project To Advance Therapeutic Vaccines for Pediatric Sarcomas
Innovative therapies are urgently needed to treat pediatric cancers like sarcomas. Scientists recently found a new type of cancer-specific proteins that only appear in tumors and not in healthy cells – ‘neoantigens’ – in two common pediatric sarcomas. This new knowledge could make it possible to develop therapeutic cancer vaccines that train patients’ immune systems to recognize and destroy cancer cells. As of this week, an Oncode Accelerator Demonstrator Project aiming to develop such a vaccine is officially underway.
The development of new targeted therapies is essential to improve outcomes for pediatric patients with Ewing sarcoma, the second most common bone cancer in children and adolescents, and rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children. In high-income countries, long-term survival rates for patients with metastatic or relapsed cases of Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma remain below 30% despite aggressive treatments.
One of the first two approved Oncode Accelerator Demonstrator Projects aims to tackle part of this challenge. The project, which will be led by Sebastiaan van Heesch of the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology and Oncode Institute in collaboration with Jarno Drost (Princess Máxima Center, Oncode Institute), Albert Heck (Utrecht University), Sjoerd van der Burg (Leiden University Medical Center, Oncode Institute), and Karin Sanders (Princess Máxima Center), will build on this team’s expertise in discovering proteins that only appear on cancer cells, and developing vaccines to target those proteins.
Therapeutic Vaccines: An Innovative Approach
These proteins that appear on cancer cells but not on healthy cells, known as ‘neoantigens’, are not easy to find. Once they are identified, researchers must also check if the neoantigens they have discovered can kick-start an immune response. Neoantigens become strong candidates for therapeutic vaccines only if they can be recognized by patients’ immune cells and trigger a powerful immune response.
Therapeutic vaccines are an innovative approach to cancer immunotherapy that aim to instruct the patients’ immune system on what cancer cells “look like,” so that their immune system can recognize and eliminate tumors. In other words, therapeutic cancer vaccines trigger the patient’s immune system to recognize their tumor and control its growth. Ideally, therapeutic cancer vaccines not only help the patient’s immune system to control tumor growth or destroy the tumor, but also establish anti-tumor memory to protect patients on a longer-term basis.
Using Collaboration and Cutting-Edge Technology to Accelerate
In the Demonstrator Project that started in April 2025, the researchers will build on their previous work in setting up technology, infrastructure, and cutting-edge models to identify, characterize, and validate neoantigens in (pediatric) cancers. The Demonstrator Project will combine the strengths of the Oncode Accelerator Therapeutic Vaccines Workstream (led by van der Burg) and the Organoids Platform (led by Drost). The researchers plan to further optimize Organoid technologies to model Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma in the lab, and to use cutting-edge techniques like whole-genome sequencing and multi-omics analysis – looking at cancer through the lenses of DNA, RNA, and proteins all at once – to identify and understand the cancer-specific antigens in tumor cells. Once they pinpoint promising antigens, they will then test how strongly immune cells react to the proteins, which is a key consideration for the success of therapeutic vaccines.
Oncode Accelerator Demonstrator Projects are selected through a rigorous scientific review process and should aim to accomplish two goals: to ultimately deliver de-risked clinical candidates, and to validate Oncode Accelerator’s research infrastructure. In line with that, this project not only has the potential to address the large societal and economic impact of pediatric sarcomas but will also validate the innovative infrastructure built within Oncode Accelerator to develop novel therapeutic cancer vaccines. It is also a collaborative undertaking, with top scientists from different academic institutions, and associated with both Oncode Accelerator and Oncode Institute, joining forces. Oncode Institute acts as the exclusive valorization partner for the research groups of Sjoerd van der Burg, Sebastiaan van Heesch (Princess Máxima Center), and Jarno Drost (Princess Máxima Center), which will help to boost the potential scientific, societal, and economic impact of the results.
As this discovery and development project progresses, it will both improve scientists’ understanding of Ewing sarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma and pave the way for accelerated development of future vaccines against other pediatric and adult cancers – bringing the Oncode Accelerator program closer to its overarching goal to outsmart cancer and impact lives.
Learn more
Would you like to learn more about Demonstrator Projects and how you can work with Oncode Accelerator? To start discussing how we can collaborate, reach out to demonstrators@oncodeaccelerator.nl.
Around 600 children in the Netherlands get cancer every year, and one in four children who are diagnosed with cancer dies from this illness. When a child is seriously ill with cancer, only one thing comes first: cure. That is why at the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology we work together every day in a groundbreaking and passionate way to improve the survival rate and quality of life of children with cancer. Now, and in the longer term. Because children still have a whole life ahead of them. The Princess Máxima Center is not an ordinary hospital, but a research hospital. All children with cancer in the Netherlands are treated here. This makes the Princess Máxima Center the largest pediatric cancer center in Europe. Over 450 researchers and 900 healthcare professionals work closely with Dutch and international hospitals on better treatments and new perspectives on cures. In this way, we give the child of today the very best care and take important steps to improve the chances of survival for the children who are not yet cured.
About Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)
At LUMC we work together to improve healthcare and people's health. This is what drives us. Every single day. From delivering care to providing care for health. In this process, we join forces to ensure that our initiatives come fully to fruition. As a public institution and innovator, we stand for the improvement of health care. We build towards prevention programs and optimal and innovative care through groundbreaking research and innovative education, together with our partners in the region and beyond. In doing so, we embrace the principles of value-driven care and the use of smart advanced technology. The engine for progress is the daily efforts and great commitment of our employees who work from our core values of personal, connecting, enquiring and curious.
Oncode Institute is a research institute dedicated to realizing breakthroughs in the understanding of cancer and translating them into clinical practice for the benefit of cancer patients. The institute is founded on three pillars: Excellent Science, Collaboration, and Valorization – together creating impact. The institute unites over 750 researchers at 13 partnered research institutes across the Netherlands, all dedicated to achieving the same mission: to drive breakthrough discoveries and accelerate their translation into new diagnostics and treatments for cancer patients. Even in its short existence, the institute has driven the identification of treatment improvements and discovery of new therapies, and has established 10 start-ups— all with the goal of improving the survival and quality of life of cancer patients.
Utrecht University is an internationally prominent, research-led university that carries out fundamental and applied research across a wide range of academic fields, from infectious diseases to human rights and from climate research to cultural history. The strength of the research carried out at Utrecht University lies in the way different disciplines are combined and the integrated approach to academic and social issues. With its chosen research themes of Pathways to Sustainability, Life Sciences, Institutions for Open Societies and Dynamics of Youth, the university contributes to solving issues such as climate change, infectious diseases, the aging population, social cohesion and security.