UK scientists creating 'cancer vaccine' that may stop killer disease 20 years early
UK scientists creating 'cancer vaccine' that may stop killer disease 20 years early
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Oxford University scientists are creating a breakthrough vaccine to prevent cancer. Researchers have announced plans to “detect the undetectable” and identify changes in cells that start up to 20 years before full blown cancer develops. Professor Sarah Blagden, from the university which pioneered one of the first Covid-19 vaccines, is co-lead for the joint project with pharmaceutical giant GSK which will study “pre-cancer biology”.
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Cancer does not sort of come from nowhere. "You always imagine it would take about a year or two years to develop in your body but, in fact, we now know that cancers can take up to 20 years, sometimes even more, to develop - as a normal cell transitions to become cancerous.
"We know that, actually at that point, most cancers are invisible when they are going through this, what we now call pre-cancer stage. And so the purpose of the vaccine is not to vaccinate against established cancer, but to actually vaccinate against that pre-cancer stage.".
The GSK-Oxford Cancer Immuno-Prevention Programme is funded using £50 from the drugmaker. The university already has some of the leading researchers identifying tumour-specific proteins which could be targeted by vaccines which stop the disease coming back in people who already have established cancer. But this latest stage in research would push the boundaries of medical science further to potentially vaccinate people against cancer before they have it.
