Cancer Vaccine triggers immune response

Plans for the development of a cancer vaccine.

A publicly listed company with commercial rights to an Australian cancer vaccine has announced that the vaccine has shown to trigger an immune response in humans from early stage human trials.

Dr Robin Ward, the principle investigator of the vaccine says it triggers the creation of antibodies which recognize a mutated gene known as P-53 and target cancer tumour cells for killing.

The Australian Cancer Technologies company is now raising funds for large clinical trials to test the vaccine’s ability to prevent the recurrence of cancer in people who have the gene.

The vaccine is only likely to be used on people who have had cancer.

“We now want to move the vaccine into an earlier group of patients who have been successfully treated for cancer to try and see if we can stop the cancer coming back, so that’s the tumor response we’ll be looking for in the next group of patients,” Dr Ward said.

(Source: ABC Online)