A promising vaccine aims to prevent cancer in people with Lynch syndrome. Cancer has stalked Kevin Heyink’s big Dutch-Canadian family through the generations. His maternal grandmother, Geertruida Heyink, died in 1947 of what was believed to be stomach cancer, at the age of 36. She had eight siblings, seven of whom died of cancer. Kevin, a 48-year-old police officer, has Lynch syndrome and is participating in a clinical trial of a vaccine designed to teach the immune system to recognize and attack specific proteins found on precancerous cells. The vaccine, called Nous-209, is showing promising results, and Kevin is hoping to stay cancer-free. A family's history of cancer, a new category of prevention, and a call to action.
