Cancer vaccine

In the Harvard laboratories, it was proven for the first time that it is possible to prevent the formation of cancerous tumors, and to kill tumors that already exist in the body. The method was tested on mice and provided 90% protection against the outbreak of the tumor and 50% success in eradicating the disease

It all started at a gathering of people in the city of Sofia in Bulgaria, where I was invited by the British Council to deliver a lecture to the general public. One thing led to another, and somehow I ended up sitting in a restaurant with a group of young people who are passionate about science, green and anarchism. And as usual, he was happy. At least until the issue of vaccinations was brought up in conversation, with all the tact that characterizes Bulgarian sausage eaters.

"Mr. Cezana, can you tell us what you think about the vaccination issue?" asked the bejeweled Bulgarian woman sitting next to me with a twinkle in her eye.

"Definitely yes. I believe that vaccines are one of humanity's greatest inventions," I said, looking for the metaphor that would sufficiently impress the audience. "It's an even better invention than beer!"

The sitters shouted as one man. In Bulgaria, the beer is not insulted. "More than beer?" The little one was shocked.

"Well, maybe at the same level." I agreed to compromise. But I no longer agreed to go under the beer.

From there the conversation continued in the usual way. Do the vaccines contain mercury? Not anymore, and even when they contained it it was in a low concentration that does not harm humans. Do vaccines cause autism? No such case has ever been discovered. And of course, the complaint that repeats itself in every living room conversation - "But Mr. Cezana, if vaccines are so good, why don't we have a cancer vaccine yet?"

And the truth is that really recently A study has finally been published which indicates that we are on the right path to a cancer vaccine. Only in laboratories, only for mice and yet, in a few years we may all be walking around with constant protection from cancer.

It all started with the idea of ​​researchers from Harvard University to teach the body to fight itself against cancer. Not the whole body, of course - only the immune system, which is also the one that protects us from bacteria and viruses. The immune system does this by means of a special type of white blood cells - the body's policemen - that constantly roam the body looking for cells that have gone out of control. If they meet such, they immediately kill them. Straight and smooth, no tricks. The body is not a democracy, and it is important to eliminate these cells before they start to divide and produce a cancerous tumor.

If this mechanism worked perfectly, then we would never get cancer. But as with any complex system, the immune system can also make mistakes from time to time. In rare cases, the white blood cells fail to stop the cancer cell at an early enough stage, and begin to act against it only when it is already too late. That single cell out of control begins to divide many times and creates a tumor that consists of millions of cancer cells.

In principle, the white blood cells can treat the tumor even at this stage. The problem is that the presence of a large number of cancer cells in one place disrupts the delicate homing mechanisms of the white blood cells and paralyzes them. If we think of the white blood cell as a fighting robot, then when it approaches the tumor it is overwhelmed by the excess information secreted by the many cancer cells and its operating system crashes.

The best way to treat an existing cancer would, of course, be to reactivate these white blood cells, which are responsible for killing the cancer cells. To carry out the mission, bioengineers and immunologists from Harvard University collaborated and created the first vaccine that is able to reactivate white blood cells and prepare them to act against cancerous tumors.

Octopus arms

To activate the body's policemen, the researchers used cells of a different type, which function as a kind of "announcers". These cells are called dendritic cells (having multiple arms, like an octopus) and they are the body's first line of defense. The whistlers are able to catch bacteria and other contaminants, break them down and analyze their contents. If they decide it is a threat to the body, they will raise an alarm and call the white blood cells into action.

In order for the policemen of the body to know what the current threat is, the whistleblowers migrate to the police stations - the lymph nodes - where many white blood cells are concentrated. They will present to the white blood cells the remains of the bacteria they have captured, and thus the body's policemen will be able to know who the invaders are and how to identify them. In fact, the reporting dendritic cells activate the white blood cells even before they have even approached the source of danger.

To activate the dendritic cells, the researchers implanted a hollow plastic disc under the skins of mice. The disc secreted substances that attracted the secretory cells in the area. They flocked to her like flies to rotting meat, and only when they arrived and penetrated her, they discovered that there were actually no bacteria there.

Instead of bacteria, the dendritic cells were exposed to a surprise: remnants of cancer cells, which the crafty researchers embedded within the walls of the disc. The dendritic cells devoured the remnants of the cancer cells, then spread to the lymph nodes and began to show those remnants to the white blood cells. The police of the body were activated with all their might against any cell that shows signs on its surface that identify it as a cancer cell, and this before they were even exposed to the edge of a cancerous tumor in the body. And it is, in other words, a vaccine against cancer.

So the idea is brilliant. Simple and brilliant. But does it work? And how can you even check if a vaccine protects against cancer? To test the effectiveness of the vaccine, the researchers decided to use experimental mice, and inject them with cancer cells that would produce a tumor inside the body. In all the mice that did not receive the vaccine before the injection, a fatal cancerous tumor developed. In contrast, only ten percent of the mice that received the vaccine developed a similar cancerous tumor! That is, the vaccine provided protection from cancer to ninety percent of the mice.

The surprises did not end here. The vaccine, it turns out, does not provide only passive protection. Even if there is already a tumor in the body, the instructions encoded in the small plastic disk can activate the white blood cells when they are far from the tumor. In this case, our battle robot ignores all the unnecessary messages it receives from around, and focuses on only one - to eliminate the cancer cells in the tumor.

Indeed, when the disc was implanted under the skin of mice that already had a solid tumor in their bodies, it caused the complete disappearance of the tumor in seven out of fifteen mice. Not only a vaccine, but also a cure for cancer, which does not harm the healthy cells of the body.

Silence fell on the table. Those present digested the words in silence. The little Bulgarian furrowed her brow in deep thought. Something was bothering her.

"Mr. Cezana, but what if he causes autism?"