A team of researchers immunized mice with proteins derived from their own cancer cells. The treatment, reported in tomorrow Science *, significantly slowed the spread of many types of cancer.
A group of researchers from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington made the vaccine by purifying heat shock proteins (HSP), which are released from stressed cells and alert the immune system to destroy it. To test the ability of the vaccine to stop the spread of cancer, the researchers injected cancerous lung cells in the footpads of mice. The tumors were removed when they were 5 mm wide, and half the mice received weekly doses of heat shock proteins purified from the same type of cancer cells that were injected. The mice that received saline all died within 45 days of cancer that spread from tiny remnants of the tumor. But 80% of vaccinated mice survived without cancer lesions for 250 days. The team had similar success with colon cancer and melanoma.
"We proved the HSP vaccines can be used as a general strategy for treating a variety of tumors in mice," said Ping Peng, an immunologist with the team. Research is an important step, says Hans Schreiber, an immunologist and cancer researcher at the University of Chicago. By purifying the heat shock proteins of cancers, "you can get individualized therapies," he said. "This is a major breakthrough."
* For details, Science Online Subscribers can create a link to the full report.
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