The world’s first ovarian cancer vaccine could wipe the disease out, researchers have said.

OvarianVax is a vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer.

It’s being developed by scientists at the University of Oxford.

The hope is that women could receive the jab preventatively on the NHS with the goal of eradicating the disease.

Experts have suggested it could work in a similar way to the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which is on track to stamp out cervical cancer.

  • PlantJam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    1 month ago

    While the “full-blown timeline” for the vaccine being approved “might be many years away” the visible impact could be sooner.

    Professor Ahmed added that, through clinical trials, he would hope to start seeing the vaccine’s impact “in four or five years on the healthy population”.

    This is really exciting. I wonder if vaccines could be developed for other cancers using a similar technique?

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      They will establish which proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells are best recognised by the immune system and how effectively the vaccine kills models of the disease in a lab.

      Sounds like it would to me. Between this and mRNA vaccines, there’s a lot of promise out there.