Researchers Closer to Cancer Vaccines

[Guest guest]

Scientists one step closer to cancer vaccine

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have helped to identify

a molecule that can be used as a vaccination agent against growing

cancer tumours. Although the results are so far based on animal

experiments, they point to new methods of treating metastases.

The results are presented in the online edition of the prestigious

scientific journal Nature Medicine, and represent the collaborative

efforts of researchers at KI and Leiden University Medical Centre in

Holland.

The study analysed an immunological cell, a T cell, which recognises

other cells with defects common to metastasing ones. These defects

(which are found in MHC class 1 molecules) allow the tumour cell to

evade the " conventional " T cell-mediated immune defence.

The researchers have identified a short peptide molecule that the T

cell in the study recognises. Using this peptide, the researchers can

vaccinate and protect against the spread of tumors from different

tissues, including melanoma, colon cancer, lymphoma, and

fibrosarcoma.

" So far we've only conducted research on mice, so it's too early to

get out hopes up too much, " says research scientist beth Wolpert

at the Microbiology and Tumour Biology Centre. " However, the study

does point towards new possible ways of developing a treatment for

advanced tumour diseases. "

The newly published study is a continuation of an original discovery

that first identified the TEIPP-T cell and that was presented in Ms

Wolpert's doctoral thesis at Karolinska Institutet in 1998.

The spread of tumors, or metastases, is the most common cause of

death from cancer.

###

Publication: Selective cytotoxic T-lymphocyte targeting of tumor

immune escape variants, Nature Medicine, AOP (online edition),

Thorbald van Hall, beth Wolpert, van Veelen, Klas Kärre,

Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Cornelis JM Melief, Rienk Offringa, et al