| Vaccination should stop cancer |
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 We aim to test for breast cancer patients within three to four years, "says Kristian Pietras at the Karolinska Institute. A tumor can not be larger than 1-2 millimeters if not forming new blood vessels which supply it with food. Three years ago, discovered a group of researchers at the Karolinska Institute for a protein, Dll4, which is necessary for tumor blood vessels to form and grow. The discovery gave us the idea to try to develop a vaccine against the protein, "says Kristian Pietras, associate professor of tumor biology at the Karolinska Institute. The hypothesis was that if the body produces antibodies to the protein so the tumor can not grow properly. The vaccine, which researchers have now tested on mice is a so-called DNA vaccine. This means that injecting a small piece of DNA containing a gene that produces large amounts of proteinetDll4. The amount that makes the immune system sees proteins - and begins to produce antibodies. Scientists have recently completed tests on mice and the hypothesis seems to hold. Breast cancer tumors in mice that received three doses of vaccine formed blood vessels so bad that many tumor cells died. Compared with the unvaccinated group had blood vessels in tumors a blood supply, which was 75 percent worse. Vaccination resulted in either no side effects and did not affect wound healing. - We are not the first to test the vaccine against cancer, but we are the first to test the vaccine against this target protein, "says Kristian Pietras. Now await further animal studies to see how long the vaccine is effective. The researchers have also filed a patent on the vaccine. - We hope that the same approach will work for all types of cancer, not just breast cancer. But we have not examined yet. |
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