July 22nd, 2004
Cancer Vaccine Progress
Vaccines are a hot topic in cancer research these days, and the BBC reports on promising results from Australian. Cancer vaccines work by convincing the immune system to attack cancerous cells. The results are good: "According to the doctors, 14 of the 19 patients were cancer-free two years after their treatment started." One the researchers says that the work shows "it is possible to stimulate an integrated immune response that has the potential to attack cancer from a number of different angles. [These results give] us enormous confidence that we are heading in the right direction to develop a clinically effective therapy."