We may one day have a cancer-fighting vaccine tailor-made to fit each patient. Do you think we'll eventually be able to stop all cancer with a single poke? Scientists have long sought cancer vaccines that prevent the pesky cells from growing back. Like those targeting viruses, the vaccines would train the body’s immune system to recognize the cancerous cells and attack and eliminate them before they could grow and spread. Despite decades of research into cancer vaccines, the dream has mostly failed. One reason is that every cancer, in every person, is different. So is each person’s immune system. Tailoring vaccines to neutralize cancers for each patient would not only be expensive, but sometimes impossible due to how long they’d take to develop—time is not on cancer patients’ sides. In contrast, mRNA vaccines are far speedier to build. A melanoma patient, Angela had multiple malignant moles removed. Alongside an established immune-stimulating drug, the hope was the duo could fight off any residual cancerous cells and slash the chances of relapse. After they were removed, Angela’s malignant moles were analyzed for specific cancerous “fingerprints” or neoantigens. Based on these proteins, scientists at Moderna—known for their Covid-19 vaccines—built a custom mRNA cancer vaccine to train her immune system to prevent her own cancer from recurring. Angela is part of clinical trial led by pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck to see if malignant skin cancer came back in patients given the treatment. Compared to a standard immunotherapy drug alone, adding a custom mRNA vaccine reduced the chances of cancer returning by roughly 50 percent and increased lifespan.
Mark Hodges
1mo
Correction, Correction, I hit the iPhone screen <Post> key as it is easy to wack before correcting errors - 1.) humanity not humanitt and 2.) orphaned ) at the end.
Environmental Impact Assessments and Renewable Energy
1moCatherine: Excellent brief, thank you. 71 and no cancer to date, but always on high alert. It is my opinion that for such a program to succeed in helping the general population it must be run by NIH, FDA or a specially created entity run in a much leaner and meaner mode. AI, such as Palantir, must also thoroughly engaged. If left to the criminally profitable “Pharmaco-Medical Industrial Complex” profit not benefit to humanitt, will be the motive and only the rich and well-insured will benefit as price will otherwise be a reflection of accelerated recovery of private sector research costs - though no small amount of the research has been done by academia and funded by the government). Semper fidelis, Mark, St. Augustine, Florida