Anybody know the identifier?
The team tested their vaccine implant in mice with melanoma. Control mice that were given implants without the vaccine material died from their cancers within 25 days. Mice that received one vaccine implant showed slower tumor growth, some tumor regression, and survived longer. Of the mice that received two vaccine implants, half completely eliminated all tumors. No other cancer vaccine to date has shown such an effective anti-tumor response.
And now, four short years later, a human trial has started. (Usually it takes about 10 years to move research from animals in labs to human patients.) It’s a Phase I trial—meaning it’s testing for safety in a small group of patients. Each participant will receive four implants over the course of four months. If this trial shows the implant is safe, further trials will be conducted on larger numbers of patients to determine its efficacy—not just in mice, but in humans.
The researchers hope that, like vaccines that confer long lasting immunity to infectious diseases, this new vaccine may endow patients with resistance that keeps the cancer from coming back. That would be an enormous breakthrough—for patients with melanoma, and perhaps for the treatment of many other cancers, too.
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