新超级疫苗可治疗70%的癌症且疗效好于赫赛汀

New super vaccine could tackle 70% of lethal cancers and is better than 'wonder drug' Herceptin
By FIONA MACRAE
Last updated at 9:58 PM on 12th December 2011


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/healt ... .html#ixzz1gVDr2Ter


A vaccine that could deal a serious blow to seven in ten lethal cancers has been developed by scientists.
In tests, it shrunk breast tumours by 80 per cent, and researchers believe it could also tackle prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers.
Even tumours that resist treatment with the best medicines on the market, including the ‘wonder drug’ Herceptin, may be susceptible to the vaccine.

Vaccine: A new drug could help fight 70 per cent of all cancers
The experiments done so far have been on mice, but researchers hope to pilot  the drug on people within two years.
If all goes well, the vaccine – one of the first to combat cancer – could be on the market by 2020.
More than 300,000 cases of cancer are diagnosed in Britain each year and the disease kills around half this number annually.
Rather than attacking cancer cells, like many drugs, the new treatment harnesses the power of the immune system to fight tumours.
The search for cancer vaccines has until now been hampered by fears that healthy tissue would be destroyed with tumours.

Breakthrough: The vaccine is thought to be even more effective than Herceptin
To get round this, researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in the United States focused on a protein called MUC1 that is made in bigger amounts in cancerous cells than in healthy ones.
Not only is there more of it, but a sugar that it is ‘decorated’ with has a  distinctive shape.
The vaccine ‘trains’ the immune system to recognise the rogue sugar and turn its arsenal against the cancer.
Researcher Professor Sandra Gendler said: ‘Cancer cells have a special way of thwarting the immune system by putting sugars on the surface of tumour cells so they can travel around the body without being detected.
‘To enable the immune system to recognise the sugar, it took a special vaccine that had three parts to it.
‘That turned out to be a winning combination.’

Vaccine: The new treatment opens up the possibility of vaccinating high-risk women against breast cancer in the future
Her co-author Professor Geert-Jan Boons said: ‘This vaccine elicits a very strong immune response.
‘It activates all three components of the immune system to reduce tumour size by an average of 80 per cent.’
The misshaped MUC1 sugar is found in 90 per cent of breast and pancreatic cancers and around 60 per cent of prostate cancers, as well as many other tumours.
The researchers believe more than 70 per cent of all cancers that kill may be susceptible to the vaccine.
Despite their excitement, the work is still only at an early stage.
After the ‘dramatic’ results of the tests on mice with breast tumours, the researchers now plan to try the drug on human cancer cells in a dish.
Years of large-scale human trials would need to follow before the drug was judged safe and effective for widespread use in hospitals.
It could then be used with existing drugs to boost treatment and given to prevent tumours from coming back after surgery.
Men and women known to be at high risk of cancer because of their genes could also be vaccinated in an attempt to stop tumours from appearing.
Dr Boons, who has founded a biotech company to commercialise the vaccine, said: ‘We are beginning to have therapies that can teach our immune system to fight what is uniquely found in cancer cells.
‘When combined with early diagnosis, the hope is that one day cancer will become a manageable disease.’
The drug is one of several treatments in the pipeline that work by triggering the immune system to attack and kill cancer cells.
Dr Caitlin Palframan, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: ‘This exciting  new approach could lead to treatments for breast cancer patients who have few options.
‘It also opens up the possibility of vaccinating high-risk women against breast cancer in the future.
‘However, we need to see this approach trialled in cancer patients before we know its full potential.’
Oliver Childs, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘These researchers are not alone in trying to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer – it’s a key area of research interest around the world.
‘This study is interesting, but a long way from a vaccine for cancer patients at the moment.
‘The next step is to see if this work can be repeated in human cells in the lab and then in larger trials with patients.’


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翻译主要内容吧：
科学家们已经开发出一种疫苗，它可以沉重打击十分之七的癌症。试验时，这种疫苗可以收缩乳腺肿瘤达80%，研究人员相信它也可治疗前列腺癌、胰腺癌、肠癌和卵巢癌。即使肿瘤对目前市场上最好的药物（包括‘特效药’赫赛汀）产生抗药性，也会易于受到该疫苗的抑制。目前一直对小鼠进行该药的实验，但研究人员希望两年内将此药用于人类试验。如果一切顺利，这种首个对抗癌症的疫苗之一将于2020年投放市场。
此种新疗法不像很多药物那样攻击癌细胞，它是利用免疫系统的能力抗击肿瘤。
佐治亚大学和美国梅奥诊所的研究人员们另辟蹊径，他们将研究重点放在一种叫做黏蛋白（MUC1）的蛋白质上，它在癌细胞中产生的数量要大于健康细胞。癌细胞中的MUC1不仅数量异常，而且其表面覆盖的糖物质呈现出一种独特的形状。该疫苗‘训练’免疫系统识别异常的MUC1，并向癌细胞发起攻击。

A tribute to pharmacist!
we look forward to : one day cancer will become a manageable disease!