As of: March 16, 2024, 6:03 p.m
By: Robin Dittrich
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Many people are familiar with mRNA vaccines thanks to the corona pandemic.
In the future, they will also be used in the fight against cancer.
Frankfurt – Vaccinations are not only helpful against diseases like COVID-19 or the flu.
They are also becoming increasingly interesting for cancer research.
In the future, a vaccine should protect against relapse after cancer surgery.
mRNA vaccine against cancer – researchers expect success
Vaccinations are usually injected before a patient suffers from an illness.
There is currently increasing advertising for vaccination against HPV and hepatitis B viruses.
This should prevent many cases of cervical cancer and cancer of the mouth and throat.
However, an mRNA vaccine that is currently being researched should only be administered after a tumor has been removed in order to protect against a relapse, as Katja Silberbach, Director of Medical Affairs at the pharmaceutical company MSD, reports in an RTL
interview
.
An mRNA vaccine offers great hope in the fight against cancer - each vaccine is manufactured individually.
(Symbolic image) © Aton Chile/Imago
The Berlin Charité is currently testing how well the vaccination works.
An 81-year-old test subject is currently undergoing some tests to observe the effects of the vaccination.
He was diagnosed with black skin cancer last November and was operated on.
The risk of recurrence is particularly high with skin cancer, as the
RTL
article says.
Unlike Corona, the vaccination is not a constant vaccine; each vaccine is individually tailored to the patient.
“That gives us great hope” – vaccine could save lives
“Every tumor is different, which is why we need this individual therapy,” says Professor Thomas Eigentler from the Charité Berlin.
This personalized vaccine is currently still being manufactured in the USA.
“The vaccine ensures that the cells in the body produce certain building blocks of this cancer and the immune cells in the body are activated accordingly,” Katja Silberbach explains the process.
So far there have been promising results in research: “That gives us great hope.”
The German Cancer Research Center (dkfz) has also already reported on the mRNA vaccines.
“The aim of this therapy is to enable the immune system to recognize the tumor and fight it with the weapons available,” said oncologist Niels Halama there.
Because some cancer cells camouflage themselves against your own immune system, new tumors can arise.
The individual mRNA vaccine is intended to prevent exactly this and the tumor cells are once again recognized as “foreign” by the immune system.
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