Miracle cancer jab shows UK is in 'golden age' of research
Cancer vaccines are an exciting development but not the magic solution to beating cancer, says Iain Foulkes, the Executive Director of Research and Innovation at Cancer Research UK
The science that helped us out of the pandemic continues to show promise in treating other diseases.
Today is another step forward with Moderna and MSD’s melanoma vaccine progressing to Phase 3 clinical trials. It will now be tested in a larger number of patients to ensure it is effective for treating melanoma skin cancer after surgery.
We already live in a world where a vaccine developed through decades of research has reduced cases of cervical cancer by nearly 90 per cent in women in their 20s who received the vaccine aged 12 to 13. It's possible that we could eliminate this cancer type as a public health problem.
But it’s not just Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine technology being repurposed: Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation also recently announced up to £1.7m funding to investigate whether Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine platform can be used to make LungVax, the world’s first vaccine to prevent lung cancer.
How do these new cancer vaccines work? mRNA vaccines are designed to carry genetic instructions to train the immune system to recognise abnormal cells from healthy cells, then activate the immune system to kill those cells.
But as exciting as today’s announcement is, cancer vaccines are not the magic solution to beating cancer.
We need long-term strategies to diagnose more cancer cases earlier, reduce inequalities in accessing care, and reduce cancer waiting times.
We also face a UK R&D funding gap of more than £1bn by the end of the next decade, which if not urgently addressed, could impact the cancer breakthroughs of the future.
Today’s announcement shows we are in a golden age of cancer research, but we can’t take our foot off the pedal, we still have so much more to achieve to ensure people affected by cancer can live longer, better lives.
