This is exciting news that really should be getting more headlines than it is. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic have successfully developed a vaccine (!!) that prevents breast cancer from occurring in mice that were pre-engineered to develop breast cancer. This is HUGE, medically speaking. Even though the vaccine in it’s current incarnation only functions to suppress breast cancer, the medical ground broken will surely spill over into other avenues. Cancer survivors, like me, have reason to hope that soon this nasty disease will be little more than a blurb in the history books.
From the source:
Cancer vaccines, unlike traditional vaccines, are generally designed to arm the immune system with the tools to fight a certain existing disease or cancer-causing virus, rather than directly prevent cancer from developing. But researchers have found a protein manufactured in cancerous breast cells that primes the immune system to attack tumor cells themselves and prevent the growth of tumors altogether.
In mice that had been pre-engineered to develop breast cancer, an injection of the protein stopped the cancer from ever forming. Healthy lactating cells produce the protein as well, and as such it could one day provide a vaccine that prevents breast cancer in non-lactating women.
Source: First Preventative Cancer Vaccine Demonstrated to Work in Mice
June 7, 2010
Thoughts