Yes Through Artificial intelligence and MRNA technology, developed during the covid-19 pandemic #MukTv
After decades of disappointment, efforts to create vaccines that can stimulate the immune system to fight cancer are showing renewed promise. Breakthroughs are possible this year 2025. The optimism stems from advances in mrna technology and personalised medicine, and in particular from a melanoma vaccine called mrna-4157, developed by Moderna and Merck, that is performing well in trials.
In 2025 the fda, America’s drugs regulator, could approve the vaccine. And in Britain the nhs’s Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad, a tie-up with BioNTech, a pioneer of covid vaccines, aims to fast-track thousands of patients into trials for mrna-based personalised vaccines for colorectal, pancreatic and melanoma cancers.
The new NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP) is a platform that will speed up access to a tailored cancer vaccine clinical trial for people who have been diagnosed with cancer – and accelerate the development of cancer vaccines.
- The UK’s National Health Service has launched the world’s first trial for a cancer vaccine.
- One in five people worldwide will get cancer in their lifetime and 20 million new cases were identified in 2022 alone.
- Advancements in healthcare puts the spotlight on how to narrow the gap in diagnosis and treatment between high and low-income nations – also a key focus for the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Equity Network.
The launch of the world’s first trial for a cancer vaccine is not just groundbreaking in the field of medicine – but for the future of hundreds of millions of people in the 21st Century. This first-of-its kind vaccine is personalized to each patient and the culmination of many decades of research.
The Vaccine
A cancer vaccine could have a vastly significant impact worldwide. Overall, 10,000 people could receive bespoke cancer treatments on the UK National Health Service, the world’s largest publicly funded health service, by 2030. This would mark a major step towards dramatically reducing cancer rates worldwide in the coming decades.
Cancer is a leading cause of mortality globally, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The most common cancers are breast, lung, colon and rectum and prostate cancers and 20 million new cancer cases of all types were identified in 2022 alone.
Vaccines can have a transformative effect on global health. They have been in development for 228 years, with the first successful dose administered by Dr Edward Jenner to protect against smallpox in 1796. Since then, the rate of research into vaccinations for many diseases affecting people all over the world has soared.
In the last 50 years alone, vaccines have saved the lives of 154 million people worldwide – 65% of whom were infants. This number could climb significantly if the NHS’ cancer vaccine trial proves effective and is widely distributed.
How does the vaccine work?
The cancer vaccine is not given to patients to prevent cancer happening, but to patients with existing tumours – making it different from other vaccines. It is designed to help our immune systems recognize what cancer cells “look like”. This revolutionary form of immunotherapy then helps the body recognize, destroy and prevent the spread of existing cancer cells.
Thousands of cancer patients in England will gain fast-tracked access to the trial, a “matchmaking” service to help find new life-saving treatments, the NHS said. The first patient was given the vaccine to treat bowel cancer.
WEF\MukTv
