Breast cancer breakthrough

Article By: Relaxnews

American researchers have announced that a breast-cancer vaccine could be just a few years away.
The researchers, who published their findings in the online edition of the journal Nature Medicine, indicated that a vaccine that would probably target women aged 40 and up and those with a high risk of the disease.

Vincent K Tuohy, an immunologist and researcher in the department of immunology at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, and his team have been studying “the possibility of a vaccine that would protect women from breast cancer”.

“Most attempts at cancer vaccines have targeted viruses, or cancers that have already developed,” said Joseph Crowe from Cleveland Clinic’s Breast Center.

The vaccine works very differently from the vaccines for both cervical- and lung-targeting viruses, namely the human papillomavirus and Hepatitis B respectively.

It is designed to target ?-lactalbumin, a protein present in most breast cancers and breast milk, and should “rev up a woman’s immune system to target ?-lactalbumin — thus stopping tumor formation without damaging healthy breast tissue,” according to a Lerner Research Institute announcement.

“Dr Tuohy is not a breast cancer researcher, he’s an immunologist, so his approach is completely different — attacking the tumor before it can develop. It’s a simple concept, yet one that has not been explored until now,” added Crowe.

Human trials will begin in 2011, and if successful, the goal would be to vaccinate women over the age of 40 as breast cancer risk increases after that age, and avoid preventative mastectomies.