Reading time: 2 minutes – spotted on IFL Science
Scientists from the University of Florida have tested an experimental vaccine on mice with different types of cancer, such as melanoma, bone or brain cancer. If they manage to adapt it to humans, this vaccine could revolutionize the fight against disease.
Based on ARN Messager technology, the vaccine will send a message to the body so that it produces a special protein. The immune system will then identify this protein and learn to protect yourself. The message ends up disappearing from the body, but the immune system has learned the lesson, and now knows how to react if it comes to the future on the real disease.
Unlike Vaccines against COVVI-19-and even if the two are based on the same technology-the aim of the cancer vaccine is not to produce a particular protein but rather to strongly stimulate the immune system in order to strengthen it, details the IFL science media.
An upcoming revolution?
The first results are conclusive: associated with an existing immunotherapy treatment, anti-PD1, the vaccine has visibly boosted the body’s response against the disease.
The addition of this treatment in the protocol led to the white blood cells of the immune system to fight a tumor that hitherto resisted treatment alone. Even more impressive: in some cases, the only RNA vaccine was enough to treat cancer, sometimes managing to completely eliminate the tumor.
What surprises the researchers most is that this vaccine does not have a specific target, and actually seems to work on all types of tumor. This feat leaves to hope for the possibility of a “universal” vaccine against cancer which would be able to help treat several types of tumors, even those resistant to current treatments.
The team at the University of Florida remains cautious about this vaccine which has not yet been tested on humans. Professor Stephen Powis, senior manager of the British health system, recently said on the subject that cancer treatment is “At the dawn of a golden age”.
Hopefully he was right.