Diprovocim: A promising new vaccine anti-cancer can avoid and stop the return of aggressive cancer cells.
With the procase of a molecule called Diprovocim in a vaccine, researchers report that it is able to fight cancer-causing cells in mice. It works in combination with other treatments to treat cancer and can stop some aggressive and often fatal forms of cancer, such as melanoma.
"This co-treatment has produced a comprehensive response (treatment proposal) to the treatment of melanoma," said Dr. Dale Boger of Scripps Research.
The vaccine also urges the immune system to defend itself in case of cell return, according to the Nobel Prize winner Bruce Beutler of the University of Texas Southern.
"As a vaccine can train the body to fight against external pathogens, this vaccine trains the immune system to put it with a tumor," says Professor Boger.
So far research has been tested against a particularly aggressive form of melanoma. Three groups of eight experimental animals received the vaccine. Of the eight mice that received the vaccine with Diprovocim along with an adjuvant called alum, the vaccine had 100% success over 54 days. Mice that received the alum-adjuvanted vaccine had a 25 percent survival rate while those that received the vaccine alone had a zero survival rate.
When the researchers tried to re-insert the tumor into mice, they "didn't get it", says Professor Boger. "The animal was already vaccinated."
It is still in very early stages, but the next steps, according to Boger and Beutler, are to do further pre-clinical tests with the vaccine and study its effectiveness when combined with other cancer therapies.
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