The target
Cancer: An abnormal uncontrolled proliferation of cells. The immune system doesn’t show any response, as the cancer cells are just some normal cells, which have gone crazy. That means that they could deceive our immune system, which recognizes them as normal.
The point of weakness
Cancer cells usually express so-called cancer-specific antigens, which are not otherwise expressed by normal cells.
The mission
Using these antigens as a method of differentiation, we have to teach our immune system to wipe out these cells without affecting the innocent normal ones.
How?
Whole cell vaccines: using tumor cells, derived from a patient or many patients or use human tumor cell lines designed in lab. This will elicit the immune response for all the antigens on cancer cells.
OR,
Antigen vaccines: using a specific antigen on the cancer cell through identifying a certain gene, then cloning the gene, which encodes for it.
Advancing
Adjuvants: using chemical substances to enhance T-cell response such as Interleukin-2 “IL2”.
Vector: using viral vectors to deliver the gene of interest to cells, which makes the cancer more visible to the immune system.
Major obstacle
One major obstacle facing cancer vaccines is that the response is not readily measurable. For chemotherapeutic drugs development, the end point is usually progression-free survival, which has shorter-term outcomes. Cancer vaccines are characterized by longer-term outcomes and increased survival rate.
For more information, Read here.
Tags: antigen, antigen vaccine, cancer, cell lines, cloning, interleukin, progression, survival rate, vaccinolgy, viral vector
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An amazing style to present an amazing topic! Thank you for this post.
I like how you summed up the whole thing into this post. No wonder all the research involved takes forever, until the data is finally published.
Cool style!! 🙂
thank you,mariam.
thank you, radwa.
I’m happy you liked this style.
Radwa, I believe that simplicity is the key of learning. u can learn anything , although being extremely complicated by summing it up into few simple words.
Good job! But i think it will take long time before a cancer vaccine appear.
I always dream with acazy idea about using virus in treatment of cancer !!!!!!don’t laugh …… it is still just a dream but i hope to real soooooon isa
Ahmed, this is not a dream. Gene therapy by the use of viruses has been researched for a while and is currently being applied in early stages. Read about it more http://tinyurl.com/yl5yx9f
انا بجد مش مصدق نفسى لاول مرة اقول الفكرة لحد و ما يقوليش انت مجنون الحمد لله انه حقيقة ده انا بعد كده اسيب دماغى تحلم طالما كل احلامى لحد دلوقتى اتحققت جايز الواحد فى يوم من الايام يقدر يعمل حاجة تفيد البشرية
شكرا جداااااااا يا دكتور رامى
hello every body, m really very interested in that subject.. and i beleive there is a cure for any disease, but maybe we didnt find about that yet..
i think there should much more fund to scientific research here in egypt.. and we all should take a role in it.
besides, i wanna ask about something.. i once read that in normal human, cancer cells could be formed but the immune capacity can overcome such a thing.. so what could be the participations in something like this?