The development of vaccines for cancer and malaria by a team including Ed Doherty, F. Stephen Hodi, David Mooney, and Jerome Ritz showcases the power of collaboration and the non-linear path of innovation. Doherty, co-founder of Attivare Therapeutics, a startup from Harvard labs, humorously remarked, \u201cIt\u2019s going to kill me, but it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d Attivare’s technology constructs tiny “factories” in the body, teaching immune cells to recognize and attack tumor cells, showing promise in cancer trials and expanding to infectious diseases like COVID-19 and malaria.<\/p>\n
In December 2025, Attivare secured a $6.6 million grant extension from the Gates Foundation to continue its malaria vaccine development. The evolution of the vaccine project highlights the collaborative efforts of basic scientists, translational scientists, and clinical researchers. WDVAX, the initial cancer vaccine, took a complex journey from lab bench to patient bedside and back, prompting Doherty to leave the Wyss Institute and form Attivare in order to advance the vaccine’s development.<\/p>\n
The innovation of porous biomaterial “factories” was spearheaded by David Mooney at Harvard\u2019s Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Mooney’s lab developed the process further at the Wyss Institute. F. Stephen Hodi, a Harvard Medical School professor, emphasized the importance of the bench-to-bedside approach for speeding up patient care. The technology’s roots trace back to Mooney’s work in the late 1990s at the University of Michigan, initially intended for tissue engineering before evolving into a cancer vaccine concept in discussions with Ph.D. student Omar Ali.<\/p>\n
Mooney’s collaboration with Glenn Dranoff at the Wyss Institute culminated in mouse studies confirming the technology’s potential in cancer treatment. Doherty, with 25 years in biomaterials, focused on standardizing the technology and navigating regulatory affairs, working with a team of experts and clinical leaders like Dranoff and Ritz. The WDVAX trial, a Phase 1 study of 21 advanced melanoma patients, was the first to test a personalized, biomaterial-based vaccine, with a focus on safety and reproducibility.<\/p>\n