A vaccine for cancer could be ready for 2030

Dr. Paul Burton, chief medical officer of pharmaceutical company Moderna, revealed in an April 2023 interview for The Guardian that he's confident that a vaccine for cancer could be ready by the 2030s.

“I think we will be able to offer personalised cancer vaccines against multiple different tumour types to people around the world”, Dr. Burton declared with confidence.

The chief medical officer of Moderna believes that a personalized mRNA vaccine, using a biopsy of a patient's tumor, could be a major game changer.

The Center for Disease Control of the United States defines Messenger RNA vaccines as those that teach “our cells how to make a protein that will trigger an immune response inside our bodies”.

Image: Sangharsh Lohakare / Unsplash

Through a laboratory-designed molecule known as Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA), our bodies learn how to develop the right antibodies and other immune defenses against a specific disease. It worked against Covid-19 and, apparently, it's also working against cancer.

Image: Barn Images / Unsplash

Moderna isn't the only one making major advancements. Pharmaceutical giant BioNTech presented during an American Cancer Society event in April 2021 the results of testing on humans the vaccine they are developing. The results have been very optimistic.

Image: Mufid Majnun / Unsplash

'mRNA Cancer Treatment: Covid Vaccine Giant BioNTech Touts Promising Early Data', that's how Forbes magazine titled the news, released in mid-April, highlighting the importance of the mRNA-type of the vaccine in the process.

Image: National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

The BioNTech treatment is focused on designing on genetically-engineered CAR T cells that have been amplified by the use of an mRNA vaccine. With this, our body is capable of fighting cancer cells alone, without the need for other treatments.

Image: National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

Can we really talk about success from such a small study sample? BioNTech thinks so. The treatment has worked in some cases, without any questions about it. The only left is improving how mRNA vaccines and CAR T cells “teach” our body to fight off cancer cells.

Image: Ousa Chea / Unsplash

Many laboratories are focusing on the development of mRNA-type of vaccines since it could be the key to dealing with diseases such as malaria or hepatitis.

The development of the mRNA technique is thanks to many decades of research. From Nobel laureate South African scientist Sydney Brenner in 1961 to researchers Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó (pictured) and their work on the Covid-19 vaccine.

According to SkyNews, Chinese researchers have managed to get great results fighting melanoma in mice with the aid of an mRNA-type vaccine.

The team from the Chinese National Center for Nanoscience and Technology managed to develop a hydrogel that is shot under the skin and shrinks tumors and prevents them from metastasis.

Another great medical challenge is finding a vaccine against AIDS. Lynda Stuart, Vice President of Infectious Diseases of the Gates Foundation, declared on Business Insider that with mRNA “The possibilities are endless”.

However, HIV's ability to mutate and adapt let the virus escape any effective vaccination for the time being. Nonetheless, there are many treatments that allow HIV-positive people to live a normal life, and even a new AIDS treatment is on the way.

Business Insider reports that mRNA can be used to treat from heart attacks to snake bites. The idea behind it is to make genetically-modified cells fight off infections.

Could this be the end of diseases as we know them? Well, that's still a pretty farfetched idea. Each different type of cancer, for instance, would need a very special, specific vaccine to deal with.

What is true is that these results are very promising. Forbes journalist Robert hart points out in his piece that new problems or side effects might arise in more comprehensive studies. However, BioNTech cofounder Özlem Türeci (pictured) believes that we're at the gate of a medium-term scientific victory.