A new 3D vaccine shows promise as the cure for cancer as scientists have discovered it could provide an effective way on harnessing or boosting the immune system to battle cancer and other infectious diseases.
The researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University developed a vaccine that has shown to be effective in delaying tumor growth in laboratory mice.
Usually, the bacteria and viruses are eliminated from the body and killed by the immune system because they are recognized as foreign bodies. Cancers cells are similar to the cells of the body and are left out and ignored. In the 3D vaccine, it will tell the immune system that these cancer cells are foreign bodies and are harmful to the body. Thus, the immune system will eliminate them.
Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases today. There is still no known successful cure for the disease and some treatment options may evade the immune system to the body in the process. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2015, there will be an estimated 1,658,370 new cancer cases diagnosed and 589,430 cancer deaths in the United States alone.
Some treatment options can specifically target cancer cells but it is too expensive and may not work for a long time. However, researcher David Mooney and his colleagues came up with an idea that entails reprogramming the body's immune cells using implantable biomaterials.
It is injected under the skin wherein it will create an infection-mimicking microenvironment. It contains tumor antigens and other chemical components that will attract dendritic cells. Hence, this method can now manipulate immune cells to have a potent response against cancer cells.
In mice experiments, when it was implanted in mice, a 90% survival rate in the animals was observed. In most cases, animals that suffer from cancer die within 25 days as reported by Nature World News.
Jessica Tucker at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which funded the research, said, "The ability to so elegantly harness the natural behavior of dendritic cells to elicit a strong immune response is impressive. The possibility of developing this approach as a cancer vaccine, which would not require an invasive and costly surgery to manipulate immune cells outside of the body, is very exciting."
The scientists are positive and hopeful that human studies may be generated in the near future to finally test their theory and vaccine in reality.
