Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University Collaborates For Cancer Vaccine Development
February 17, 2007 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Researchers at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe and Mayo Clinic will collaborate for the development of vaccine for cancer prevention.
According to George Poste, director of the Biodesign Institute:
“Clearly, our arsenal of therapeutics and knowledge of cancer has significantly advanced since the ‘war on cancer’ was declared a generation ago, but there are still entirely too many who will succumb to the disease.
Now, with powerful new tools in understanding the genetic circuitry of cancer, ASU and Mayo Clinic are developing a broad portfolio of risk-taking and highly creative approaches with a goal of alleviating the suffering caused by cancer.”
The said project will work on the theory that a single cell goes out of hand and divide uncontrollably thereby producing a tumor. Once the cells become cancerous, they produce proteins that though unfamiliar to the human immune system should prompt a protective response from the body. However, the mechanism usually don’t proceed as such, instead the proteins kind of evade the body’s defenses allowing the cells to eventually grow into tumors.
Animal studies have shown that pre-vaccination of those proteins created an immune response that prevented tumors from forming. It is in this context that Mayo Clinic- ASU collaboration will proceed on the ambitious goal of developing anti-cancer vaccines.
Find more details from the press release.
