The Olayan Charitable Foundation (OCF) has announced a pledge to New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), a world leader in the treatment and research of cancer. The pledge will establish The Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines (Olayan CCV) and the Hutham S. Olayan and Robert F. Raucci Endowed Chair.

The gift will support an “end-to-end” vaccine program, enabling MSK to design, produce, administer, and innovate transformative cancer vaccines onsite . Surgeon-scientist Dr. Vinod Balanchandran, MD, who is currently leading a phase II clinical trial for a pancreatic cancer vaccine, will be leading the Olayan CCV in close collaboration with computational oncologist Benjamin Greenbaum, PhD.

While existing treatments can effectively target some cancers into remission, preventing relapse is much harder. The theory behind therapeutic cancer vaccines is that a patient’s immune system can be “trained” to protect itself against cancer cells by exposing it to antigens associated with particular kinds of cancer. By combining antigens with a trigger called an adjuvant, therapeutic cancer vaccines prompt the immune system to recognize and attack the cancer cells.

The Olayan CCV and the endowed chair will allow MSK to test and develop cutting-edge vaccines in an array of cancers, especially deadly cancers with a high unmet need.

“By 2050, the World Health Organization predicts there will be over 35 million new cancer cases,” says Hutham Olayan. “MSK has been recognized as a world-class research institute for decades. It is why we have been partners with them in this fight for a cancer-free world for almost fifty years. We hope this will bring us a step closer to having vaccines against tumors, various cancer relapses, and maybe even one day as a form of cancer prevention.”