"Universal cancer vaccine" breakthrough

[Deleted]

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...-a7060181.html
Published today in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture18300.html
Full paper: http://sci-hub.cc/10.1038/nature18300

Scientists have taken a “very positive step” towards creating a universal vaccine against cancer that makes the body’s immune system attack tumours as if they were a virus, experts have said.

Writing in Nature, an international team of researchers described how they had taken pieces of cancer’s genetic RNA code, put them into tiny nanoparticles of fat and then injected the mixture into the bloodstreams of three patients in the advanced stages of the disease.

The patients' immune systems responded by producing "killer" T-cells designed to attack cancer.

The vaccine was also found to be effective in fighting “aggressively growing” tumours in mice, according to researchers, who were led by Professor Ugur Sahin from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.

“[Such] vaccines are fast and inexpensive to produce, and virtually any tumour antigen [a protein attacked by the immune system] can be encoded by RNA," they wrote

“Thus, the nanoparticulate RNA immunotherapy approach introduced here may be regarded as a universally applicable novel vaccine class for cancer immunotherapy.”

Patient tests:

The paper said the three patients were given low doses of the vaccine and the aim of the trial was not to test how well the vaccine worked. While the patients' immune systems seemed to react, there was no evidence that their cancers went away as a result.

In one patient, a suspected tumour on a lymph node got smaller after they were given the vaccine. Another patient, whose tumours had been surgically removed, was cancer-free seven months after vaccination.

The third patient had eight tumours that had spread from the initial skin cancer into their lungs. These tumours remained “clinically stable” after they were given the vaccine, the paper said.

The vaccine, which used a number of different pieces of RNA, activated dendritic cells that select targets for the body's immune system to attack. This was followed by a strong response from the "killer" T-cells that normally deal with infections.

More technical detail:

The team focussed on a class of immune cells call dendritic cells which are constantly on the look-out for foreign invaders in the body. Once a dendritic cell spots a rogue cell like cancer, it captures molecules from the surface and presents it to killer T-cells to instruct it to begin fighting the disease.

However cancer cells look very similar to normal cells and so the immune system often avoids them.

The new technology involves placing a small piece of genetic code in a nanoparticle and giving it a slightly negative charge so it is drawn to dendritic immune cells in the spleen, lymph nodes and bone marrow.

Once there it orders the creation of a cancer molecule – known as an antigen – which is then used as a biological mugshot so that immune cells know what to look out for.

The authors proved that it triggers a strong T-cell response and starts fighting tumours.

[Rooflesstoofless]

Isn't this how 'I Am Legend' started?

[Deleted]

Yeah no. Not when they make 300 billion from treating it a year.

[Kalis]

Yeah no. Not when they make 300 billion from treating it a year.

An international team of reasearchers, not a team working for the US healthcare industry.

A cancer vaccine would be worth far more than £/$/€300bn a year.

[Annoying]

Yeah no. Not when they make 300 billion from treating it a year.

As if the amount of money that big pharma makes has anything to do with a group of international researchers. Particularly when the main contributors are from nations with UHCs.

[Daedius]

And suddenly the independent group of researcher and/or building meets an untimely end...

[Reeve]

Yeah no. Not when they make 300 billion from treating it a year.

You know how much more than that you'd make if you could increase people's lifespans by 30 years and drug them up during that timeframe, only to turn around and have some new horrible disease to expensively treat when people turn 120?

This is the conspiracy theory that never dies.

[heef]

Yeah no. Not when they make 300 billion from treating it a year.

Do you ever wonder if all the other blindingly stupid conspiracy theories that are out there are just all working together to make your conspiracy theory look dumb by inclusion?

[Atrea]

Wow, I came here to say "here come the big pharma conspiracy theories", but I see that ship already set sail.

Only took two posts. MMO-C, never change.

[Deleted]

We can clone sheep, send people to outer space, hit light speed, transgender people, but we cant stop a simple cellular disease.

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An international team of reasearchers, not a team working for the US healthcare industry.

A cancer vaccine would be worth far more than £/$/€300bn a year.

How? They gonna give it away at a million a pop? 10? Nobody would be able to pay for it. Insurances woulnd cover it.

[heef]

First step is probably to let all the cancer researchers know that they're dealing with a single cellular disease, and that that disease is simple. Then they can stop wasting their time on all the complicated parts.

Tell you what - you draft the email, I'll send it to them.

[Mayhem]

Sure, free of cancer is great but when if gives you autism instead? I don´t know if i´d want that trade.

/totally serious

[Kalis]

How? They gonna give it away at a million a pop? 10? Nobody would be able to pay for it. Insurances woulnd cover it.

In the UK alone, cancer costs about £15-20bn per year ($20-30bn US), then multiply it by the number of countries with universal health care, add in what they can rinse Americans for and you can see why a cancer vaccine is the goose that lays the golden egg.

Plus the additional medicines people require for living longer, which pharmaceutical companies also produce.

[Reeve]

We can clone sheep, send people to outer space, hit light speed, transgender people, but we cant stop a simple cellular disease.

I'm glad to know it's a simple cellular disease.

Tell you what. Why don't you go ahead and cure it, since it's so simple, and sell the cure for $30,000 per person, which is pretty cheap in the scheme of things. There are 1,685,210 new cases of cancer per year in the US alone, so for you personally, you get $50 billion per year. Since this is pretty easy for you to do, I don't see why you're letting this money sit on the table.

[Gheld]

Sounds pretty legit. I've been hearing lots about exciting shit coming down the pipe from cancer immunotherapy and I guess this is it.

[Deleted]

People tend to forget that once, even if it's partially effective, medication such as this exists, there are countries that will break the patent protection.

Take a look at Brazil if you want an example.

[Annoying]

We can clone sheep, send people to outer space, hit light speed, transgender people, but we cant stop a simple cellular disease.

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How? They gonna give it away at a million a pop? 10? Nobody would be able to pay for it. Insurances woulnd cover it.

40% of people will get diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime. 182 per 100,000 Have cancer at any given time. That's 12,740,000 people with it right now. So ~$24,000 a pop. Which was cheaper than my prostate cancer cost to treat.

The general price for a new cancer drug is over $100,000 per year.

[Mutaattori]

We can clone sheep, send people to outer space, hit light speed, transgender people, but we cant stop a simple cellular disease

Please tell me when did this happen?

[Mayhem]

Please tell me when did this happen?

Never heard of laser pointers? They project a glowing dot onto any surface with light speed!

[Socialhealer]

Please tell me when did this happen?

i think he's waving his arms around the room switching the lights on and off, he's hitting light as it travels....at the speed of light.