An experimental human vaccine that uses a ‘library of DNA’ to stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells without harming healthy cells, cured well-established prostate tumors in mice with no apparent side effects, wrote US and UK researchers in a study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine. The hope is that one day patients will receive such a vaccine without chemotherapy or radiotherapy and thus become tumor free while avoiding the toxic side effects of current treatments.

Lead author Dr Richard Vile, an immunologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, US, told the press that:

‘We are hopeful that this will overcome some of the major hurdles which we have seen with immunotherapy cancer research.’

He said clinical trials could be under way within the next two years.

Immunotherapy or ‘vaccines’ for cancer are not like conventional vaccines that aim to prevent disease: the aim is to wipe out already established disease or stop it spreading.

The holy grail of researchers in this new field is to stimulate the immune system to attack only the diseased part of an organ, without triggering a response that is so strong that it also attacks healthy tissue, as in an autoimmune disease.

The challenge is […]