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A Universal Cancer Vaccine?

It's the Holy Grail of medicine, and it may finally – tantalizingly – be within reach. Researchers have taken what they are calling a “very positive step” towards the creation of a vaccine that would cause the body's immune system to attack cancerous tumors as if they were a virus. Results of the study have just been published in Nature.

The team, based out of Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, developed a procedure whereby pieces of a cancer’s genetic RNA code are placed into nanoparticles of fat and then injected into into the bloodstream of the cancer patients. The coded nanoparticles “teach” the immune system about the cancer, and these patients' immune systems respond by producing the appropriate anti-cancer “killer” T-cells that target the specific cancer antigen.

The vaccine has been tested successfully against “aggressively growing” tumors in mice, but it's the successful human trials that are generating the buzz.

In one patient, a suspected tumor on a lymph node got smaller after being given the vaccine. Another patient, whose tumors had been surgically removed, was cancer-free seven months after vaccination. And the third patient had eight tumors that had spread from the initial skin cancer into the lungs. These tumors remained “clinically stable” after they were given the vaccine.

It gets even better. The researchers uphold that these custom vaccines are fast and inexpensive to produce, and virtually any tumor antigen can be encoded by RNA. That's what makes their invention a “universal” vaccine.

Side effects? The vaccine generated limited flu-like conditions in the test subjects. Compare that to the extreme sickness caused by chemotherapy.

So, now what? Is it time to call out the Lollipop Guild and celebrate the death of the Wicked Cancer Witch?

Dr. Helen Rippon, chief executive of Worldwide Cancer Research, is dinging a more cautious bell. She described the immune response in the three patients as “positive” and noted that advanced skin cancer was “a notoriously difficult cancer to treat.”

“However, more research is needed in a larger number of people with different cancer types and over longer periods of time before we could say we have discovered a ‘universal cancer vaccine’. But this research is a very positive step forwards towards this global goal,” she said.

Dr. Aine McCarthy, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information officer, has chimed in with an even more guarded tone: “Because the vaccine was only tested in three patients, larger clinical trials are needed to confirm it works and is safe, while more research will determine if it could be used to treat other types of cancer.”