The cancer vaccine that has been dreamed of for years is finally becoming a reality. Scientists who focus on vaccine studies against lung cancer are testing a new mRNA vaccine that allows the body to “hunt and kill cancer cells and prevent them from reappearing.”
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The vaccine, known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, will be used to treat lung cancer, the most common form of the disease. Lung cancer kills about 1.8 million people worldwide each year.
IT WILL BE TESTED ON 130 PATIENTS IN 7 COUNTRIES INCLUDING Türkiye
Phase 1 clinical trials of BNT116 are taking place at 34 research centres in the UK, USA, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.
According to the news in The Guardian; around 130 people at different stages of the disease, from early stage before surgery or radiotherapy to late stage disease or recurrent cancer, will be given the vaccine along with immunotherapy.
FIRST DOSE OF VACCINE GIVEN IN ENGLAND
The first dose of vaccine in the UK was administered to Janusz Racz, 67, who lives in London. He will receive the vaccine every week for six weeks, then every three weeks for 54 weeks. “The advancement of science lies in people agreeing to participate in this type of research,” said Racz, who was diagnosed with cancer in May and is undergoing chemotherapy.
Prof Siow Ming Le, consultant medical oncologist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), who is leading the UK trial, said: “We are now entering a very exciting new era of clinical trials of mRNA-based immunotherapy to investigate the treatment of lung cancer. It is simple to implement and you can select specific antigens on the cancer cell and then target them. This technology is the next big thing in cancer treatment.”