Clinical trials of the world’s first personalized skin cancer vaccine are underway in the UK.
The vaccine is designed to help the patient’s immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells. The same technology as current Covid-19 vaccines is used.
“Personalized vaccine” means that its composition is changed to meet the individual needs of patients. It is designed to match the unique genetic signature of a patient’s tumor and works by instructing the body to produce proteins or antibodies.
They are developing a lung cancer vaccine
Doctors at University College London offer the vaccine in combination with another drug, pembrolizumab or Keytruda, which also helps the immune system kill cancer cells. The combination treatment, made by Moderna and Merck Sharp and Dohme, is not yet available routinely in the national healthcare system, outside of clinical trials.
Doctor Heather Shaw from University College London told the media that the vaccine has the potential to cure people with melanoma and is being tested on other types of cancer, such as lung, bladder and kidney tumors, BNR reported.
