The vaccine intends to stop cancerous cells even before the disease takes hold and wreaks havoc on your body
The University of Oxford says it is creating a new cancer vaccine that can stop the dreaded disease before you get it. Being developed along with pharmaceutical giant GSK, the jab would target cells at the pre-cancerous stage, meaning it will have the ability to prevent the disease from ever developing.
“We can now actually start to sort of be able to detect the undetectable,” said Professor Sarah Blagden, from the University of Oxford, who will co-lead the new GSK-Oxford Cancer Immuno-Prevention Programme. According to Prof. Blagden, the vaccine will be able to stop cancerous cells even before the disease takes hold and wreaks havoc on your body.
“Cancer does not sort of come from nowhere. You always imagine it would take about a year or two years to develop in your body but, in fact, we now know that cancers can take up to 20 years, sometimes even more, to develop—as a normal cell transition to become cancerous,” she said on Radio 4’s Today programme.
“We know that actually, at that point, most cancers are invisible when they are going through this, what we now call the pre-cancer stage. And so the purpose of the vaccine is not to vaccinate against established cance but to actually vaccinate against that pre-cancer stage.”
How is the vaccine being developed?
The Programme has been launched on the back of several technological and scientific advances that have made the potential for vaccines against pre-cancer possible.
According to Professor Blagden, experts have identified what features pre-cancerous cells have as they transition towards cancer—and so a vaccine can be designed targeting that specifically. “In this case, we’re actually going for the cancer itself, but going at it at the pre-cancer stage,” she added.
While vaccines that can stop the disease from coming back or even mutating are already there, the new vaccine intends to stop the disease even before it starts.
The programme comes after GSK and Oxford established the Institute of Molecular and Computational Medicine in 2021 to drive forward the research and development of new medicines. As part of the deal, GSK will invest up to £50 million over three years into the prgoramme, which will look at how to identify vulnerabilities in pre-cancerous cells with vaccines or targeted medication.
In 2023, there were almost 20 million new cases and 9.7 million cancer-related deaths across the world, as compared to 10 million in 2020. It is estimated that lung, bowel, liver, and stomach are the most common causes of cancer death globally.
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