New vaccine successfully attacks cancer in mice

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the University of Georgia have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in mice. In a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancers, the vaccine trained the immune system to attack the MUC1 protein, which has a distinctive, shorter set of carbohydrates than most proteins and is overexpressed in cancer cells. The new vaccine uses a three part attack. One part tricks the body into thinking that the cancer cell is a bacterial infection, one part stimulates an antibody response, and one part stimulates a lymphocyte response. Because MUC1 is found on more than 70 percent of all cancers that kill, including breast, pancreatic, ovarian and multiple myeloma, the new vaccine could transform the cancer treatment landscape. The researchers are currently testing the vaccine's effectiveness against human cancer cells in culture and, if all goes well, human clinical trials will begin in 2013.

 

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Press Release