has function has role vaccinated in route immunizes against disease immunizes recipient pancreatic cancer Homo sapiens therapeutic vaccine function DNA vaccine role vaccine in clinical trial role pancreatic cancer vaccine BC-819 vaccine NCT: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT01413087 6273 Jie Zheng VIOLIN: https://violinet.org/vaxquery/vaccine_detail.php?c_vaccine_id=6273 Hayleigh Kahn NCI: https://ncithesaurus.nci.nih.gov/ncitbrowser/ConceptReport.jsp?dictionary=NCI_Thesaurus&ns=ncit&code=C107685 A cancer vaccine made with BC-819 (also known as DTA-H19), which is a double-stranded DNA plasmid, 4,560 base pairs (bp) in length, carrying the gene for the Diphtheria toxin A (DT-A) chain under the regulation of the H19 promoter. The DT-A chain expression is triggered by the presence of H19 transcription factors that are only up-regulated in tumor cells. The selective initiation of toxin expression results in selective tumor cell destruction via inhibition of protein synthesis selectively in the tumor cell, enabling highly targeted cancer treatment. It is used in combination with intravenously administered gemcitabine for patients with Locally Advanced Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma. The activation of the H19 gene promoter-containing plasmids and DTA expression are limited to tumor cells, as high levels of H19 expression are only found in tumor cells. DTA disrupts protein synthesis. Tumor-cell selective expression of this toxin leads to the selective destruction of the tumor while sparing healthy, normal cells. cancer vaccine therapeutic cancer vaccine DNA cancer vaccine intratumoral route