The search for cancer vaccines
Claire Jarvis looks at ongoing work to prevent the disease – and convince a sceptical community of their seriousness
The first thing to know about cancer vaccines is that most of them they aren’t vaccines – at least not in the sense that the general public usually thinks of them. Many current cancer vaccines are therapeutic, not preventative: they are administered after the patient is diagnosed to boost the body’s natural defences against cancer. The second thing to know about cancer vaccines is that they aren’t a new concept. Researchers have been interested in preventing cancer for a long time, but the levels of optimism towards attaining such a goal have cycled as our understanding of immunology and the cancer’s self-defence mechanisms has evolved.
Some vaccines already exist (the HPV one is probably the best known), but only 10% of cancers are viral in origin. Training the body to recognise and defeat cancer cells that spring up of their own accord is not so simple.