Health
Vaccine For Lung Cancer Could Help Kill Cancer Cells
(CTN News) – “LungVax” is a lung cancer-killing vaccine developed by a team from Oxford University, the Francis Crick Institute, and University College London that is similar to the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine that is available today.
To manufacture 3,000 doses of the vaccine, Cancer Research UK and CRIS Cancer Foundation have granted up to $2 million in funding to the team.
An immune system can be trained to recognize “red flag” proteins in lung cancer cells, known as neoantigens, and kill them using a strand of DNA.
A neoantigen is an antigen that appears on the surface of a cell as a result of mutations in the DNA of the cell that cause cancer.
Cancer Research UK reports that the UK has 48,500 lung cancer cases every year, 72% of which are caused by smoking.
Michelle Mitchell, CEO of the charity, said the LungVax is a “really important step forward” towards preventing cancer in the future.
In the future, scientists could offer us ways to live longer, healthier lives free from fear of cancer, thanks to the scientific breakthroughs that helped us survive the pandemic.
We are in the midst of a golden age for lung cancer research, and this is but one of many projects we hope will transform the survival rate for cancer patients.”
For the vaccine to be moved into a clinical trial, it needs to demonstrate that it triggers an immune response in the laboratory, prior to entering a clinical trial. Those who are at a high risk of contracting the disease could then be enrolled in larger trials to assess their risk of contracting it.
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