Prevention Before Cure?

Some researchers have stopped searching for a cure to cancer, and instead are looking at ways to prevent it by developing vaccines that work by boosting a person’s immune response to cancer cells. Recently a minimally invasive, biomaterial-based vaccination system has been developed. Cancer cells are seeded into a cryogel sponge (pictured) and injected for cancer immunotherapy. The vaccine has been recently tested against melanoma – a type of skin cancer – in mice. Mice were injected with a melanoma-seeded cryogel to deliver the cancer cells and produce an immune response. Tumours were then transplanted into the mice to test the effectiveness of the vaccine. A survival rate of up to 80% was measured. After four months, more tumours were transplanted into the surviving mice with a survival rate of 100%, showing excellent long term immunological memory. This strategy could potentially be extended to other types of cancer, providing tumour-specific immunity.

Written by Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas

Writer

Currently at Warwick University, Helen is working towards a chemistry doctorate in nanomaterials. However her scientific interests remain broad, and she enjoys exploring these different areas as a writer for the University paper.

• Image adapted from work by Sidi A. Bencherif and colleagues by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
• Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, USA
• Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Communications Copyright 2015
• Published in Nature Communications, August 2015