Two days ago, the founder of a German biotech company said in an interview that their vaccine for cancer may be available before 2030. This news has become a hot search, and many people are very excited about it: finally has hope that one injection will not cause cancer!
I know many people have this dream, but is it true?
In fact, everyone has misunderstood. The cancer vaccine mentioned in this news is a "therapeutic vaccine", not a "preventive vaccine" like hepatitis B and polio we were given when we were young.
preventive vaccine
Vaccine that many people understand is "preventive vaccine": healthy people can prevent a certain disease by getting vaccinated, mainly targeting pathogenic bacteria and viruses.
Is there a preventive vaccine for cancer? There are also some. There are currently two types, namely the hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine that can prevent liver cancer and (about 70% of liver cancer and hepatitis B virus in China), and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer and (99% of cervical cancer and human papillomavirus ).
But these two vaccines should actually be considered viral vaccines strictly. They can also prevent a small subtype of cancer. The idea of having a single shot can't get cancer is beautiful, but it's unrealistic.
Why?
Because one of the biggest characteristics of the vaccine is its specificity! A vaccine is often useful only for one pathogen.
The broad-spectrum cancer prevention vaccine is unrealistic because cancer is actually not a disease, but a combination of many diseases. Everyone has different cancers. The success of the
vaccine uses the memory function of the human immune cell : just as the Saint Seiya will not be knocked down twice by the same move, people will not be knocked down twice by the same virus or bacteria.
Many people have had chickenpox when they were young. They all know that once chickenpox is out and the fever subsides, they will never get chickenpox again in their lifetime. Why?
Because after a person is infected with the varicella virus for the first time, the immune system will not only successfully remove the virus, but also firmly remember the appearance and characteristics of this virus. Next time, any varicella virus invades the human body again, the immune system will respond quickly and murder it in the bud, so you will never get chickenpox again in your life. The first process of getting chickenpox is the process of a person gaining lifelong immunity to the chickenpox virus.
Of course, no one wants to have all kinds of diseases to achieve immunity. Not only did you suffer, some diseases are still fatal and there is no second chance. So scientists invented the vaccine.
vaccine is usually not diseased, but it looks almost exactly the same as the real pathogen, enough to cause an immune response (so you often have a fever after vaccination), and it will also trigger immune memory. Therefore, when the real pathogen appears, the immune system will quickly recognize and clear it, just like having this disease.
It is impossible for a vaccine to prevent all cancers, just as it is impossible for a vaccine to prevent all bacterial/viral infections.
therapeutic vaccine
Vaccine for preventing cancer is so difficult, so what are the companies developing cancer vaccines?
What they are doing is a "therapeutic vaccine", which is used to prevent the cancer from further development and recurrence after the cancer occurs. It targets not healthy people, but cancer patients.
Currently, almost all cancer vaccines in clinical trials are "therapeutic vaccines". They can be divided into two categories, namely "tumor-specific antigen vaccine" , and "tumor-related antigen vaccine" .
Among them, the most popular category is called "tumor neoantigen vaccine", a highly personalized tumor-specific antigen vaccine.
In 2017, two teams from the United States and Germany published a paper in the journal " Nature " at the same time. The first clinical evidence proved that the clinical trial of "personalized vaccine" for tumors has made a major breakthrough: a group of high-risk skin cancer patients, after vaccination, their specific immune response to cancer cells in their bodies has been greatly enhanced! Many people's tumors did not recur.
What is tumor neoantigen?
We all know that cancer cells are the product of gene mutations.
In each cell of a human, DNA uses the letters T, C, G, and A (a full 3 billion pairs!) to spell a perfect literary work: "Guide to the Life of Human Cells".
This guide tells cells when they divide, when they migrate, and when they die. Maintain the normal operation of the human body.
But cancer cells are not honest. It modify this guide by changing the order of T, C, G, and A, which leads to splitting when it should not be divided, migrating when it should not be migrated, and even gaining immortality.
For example, part of the normal cell guide is written like this:
"Geese, goose, goose, bent neck to the sky, white hair floats in green water, Anthracite dials the clear wave."
Some cells have undergone mutations and become:
" pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, jingling the neck toward the sky, white hair floats in green water, red palms lift clear waves."
"pineapple" happens to have powerful energy to promote the growth of cells , it is the so-called carcinogenic driver mutation, and this cell carrying the new guide becomes cancer cells.
At this time, if the human immune system can detect that this guide is wrong in time, the cancer cells will be killed. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the immune system often cannot recognize the driver mutation.
Perhaps because "pineapple" looks harmless, it is missed. The cancer cells thus grow.
Is there no way?
is not either. Mutations in cancer cells are usually not so accurate. When it turns "goose" into "pineapple", it will randomly change some seemingly insignificant words (DNA).
For example, Zhang San's cancer cells have become:
"Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, curved neck to the sky, whiteboard floats green water, red in clear wave."
whiteboard, red in whiteboard, it has no effect on cancer cell growth, it is purely a by-product. But these seemingly insignificant mutations may be the key to curing cancer! Because there is no mahjong in the life guide for normal cells, immune cells know that if you see a mahjong plaque in , this cell will definitely be abnormal!
It was purely a coincidence that cancer cells mutated the "hair" into "board", and the "palm" into "middle", and actually made "white board" and "red middle"!
This unexpectedly helped immune cells recognize cancer cells.
"White Board" and "Red Middle" are unique to cancer cells, which help immune cells recognize cancer cells' signals, which is called tumor neoantigens.
pictures come from the public image library
Because each patient produces different new antigens, some are "white board", "red middle", and some are "making wealth" and "yaoji". Activating immune cells that fight against the "white board" is ineffective against cancer cells carrying the "Yaoji" mutation. Therefore, the "tumor neoantigen vaccine" needs to be customized.
At present, various "tumour therapeutic vaccines" are still under trial, and they are still some distance away from being launched.
In recent years, with the development of the new crown vaccine , mRNA technology has been pushed to the forefront, showing some unique advantages. Many vaccine companies have used this technology in the research and development of cancer vaccines, and some have seen good early trial results.If successful, it will cooperate with existing treatment methods to turn more and more cancers into chronic diseases and even achieve clinical cure.
Whether this time is 2030 or 2040, it is very worth looking forward to.
tribute to life!
*This article aims to popularize science on cancer and the science behind treatment. It is not drug publicity materials, nor is it a recommendation for treatment plans. If you need guidance on the disease treatment plan, please go to a regular hospital for treatment.
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