Cancer vaccines hope for the future

Possible cancer vaccine - 15th May 2023

A major drug company announced that cancer vaccines could be ready to save lives within the next ten years. Research has sped up because of the knowledge gained from working on Covid vaccines. Research that would normally have taken 15 years happened in only 18 months because of the worldwide Covid emergency.

Covid vaccines are mRNA vaccines which are different from most other vaccines. They don’t contain small amounts of the virus to make our bodies familiar with it. Instead, they produce a special protein which is unfamiliar to the body. This encourages the production of other proteins known as antibodies.

Dr Paul Burton works for Moderna, one of the main Covid vaccine companies. He’s also working on a cancer vaccine. He said, "We will have that vaccine and it will be very good, and it will save many hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of lives."

Scientists can make these special cancer vaccines by taking a biopsy of a tumour. A biopsy is a small part of the tumour taken from the patient. From this, they can identify the cancer and make an individual vaccine for the patient.

Burton also claimed that in future, just one injection could protect people from several diseases. They could create a combined vaccine for different respiratory diseases such as Covid and influenza. He added that they could also develop vaccines for very rare diseases.

But, it’s crucial to keep investing in medical research so they can continue to make life-saving vaccines and treatments.