UConn Health this year is starting a clinical trial of a vaccine designed to fight ovarian cancer using the patient’s own tumor.

The V Foundation for Cancer Research is helping make it possible with a $50,000 grant to Drs. Angela Kueck and Pramod Srivastava, who say this will be the first such trial anywhere in the world.

“I am so honored to receive this award from such an inspirational organization as The V Foundation for Cancer Research that has done so much to support cancer research and improving the lives of people with cancer,” says Kueck, a gynecologic oncologist and UConn Health’s medical director of robotic surgery.

Srivastava, director of UConn Health’s Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center, has made a career of advancing cancer immunotherapy, and recently was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. His work has led to a method to identify protein mutations in cancer cells, enabling the creation of a vaccine derived from the patient’s tumor and administered to trigger the immune system to attack the tumor.

The study is scheduled to open to its first ovarian cancer patients next month, with the hope of enrolling 15 patients in the next two years. Patient follow-up would continue for five years.

“Our hope is to eventually expand our clinical trial to patients with other types of cancer,” Kueck says.