Cancer jab that can wipe out tumours?
Riya Sen walks the ramp during a fashion show by designers Manish Malhotra and Shaina NC in support of cancer patients in Mumbai
In what could be called a possible breakthrough, scientists have developed a cancer jab which they claim can wipe out tumours by stimulating the immune system so that it seeks out and destroys cancer cells.
A team at Cancer Research UK and the University of Leeds, which has developed the vaccine, says that though the jab may not fully cure cancer but it would help make the disease more like a chronic illness than a merciless killer.
Cancer victims given the jab should be able to live much longer with the disease under control, says the team. In fact, in their research, the scientists, along with experts at Mayo Clinic in the US, have discovered a DNA-based way to activate the immune system to kill tumours without any side-effects.
Normally the immune system does not recognise cancer as a threat and therefore ignores it. The new treatment fools the system into thinking the cancer is a virus and must be attacked, the Daily Express reported.
Prof. Alan Melcher, who led the team, said: “The biggest challenge in immunology is developing antigens (immune system triggers) that can target the tumour without causing harm elsewhere.
“By using DNA from the same part of the body as the tumour, inserted into a virus, we may be able to solve that problem. This may not be a cure but it will get the cancer under control meaning people will live longer with it under control. Cancer will become more of a chronic illness than a death sentence.”
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