Can we stop cancer before it starts? That’s part of the goal of cancer interception, which involves “catching” cancer cells as they begin to develop into pre-cancers or very early cancers, and halt or reverse that process.

Robert Vonderheide, MD, PhD, director of the Abramson Cancer Center, and Susan Domchek, MD, executive director of the Basser Center for BRCA, are interviewed on the new Basser Cancer Interception Institute’s efforts studying a vaccine to reduce cancer risk among individuals who carry BRCA1/2 mutations by recognizing and killing cancer cells “before anyone even knew they were there.”

Motivated by generations past, present, and future, two patients participating in the first-of-its-kind clinical trial are testing an experimental approach to stop cancer in its tracks at the earliest stages of development at the Basser Center for BRCA.

Susan Domchek, MD, executive director of the Basser Center for BRCA, speaks with NBC News correspondent Anne Thompson for the TODAY Show about the revolutionary work at Penn Medicine's Basser Cancer Interception Institute. The team is working on what could be the next revolutionary step in the creation of a vaccine to stop cancers caused by BRCA mutations.

Healthy volunteers who carry BRCA gene mutations, like Philadelphia resident Sara Walker, are participating in a cancer vaccine clinical trial. If the study is successful, the work could eventually extend to more cancers or other risk factors, noted Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, director of the ACC.

A groundbreaking cancer vaccine is in the midst of clinical trials at the Basser Center. The shot would benefit those carrying cancer-causing BRCA gene mutations by recognizing the earliest signs of disease and stopping cancer before it develops.