BioNTech scientists say custom vaccines for cancer patients are coming soon.others disagree

According to BioNTech’s founder, customized vaccines could be developed for individual cancer patients.

in an interview with BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuensbergco-founder Dr. Özlem Türeci says a cure for cancer is “in our hands.” Her husband, Dr. UğurŞahin, added that it could be available “before 2030.”

However, not everyone is convinced.

“I am very hesitant to give promissory notes,” Dr. Otis Brawley, former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, told Matt Galloway. Current.

Brawley, now a professor of oncology and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said claims that cancer vaccinations are on the horizon aren’t new.

“Our history in oncology over the past 70 years has been literally saying that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Watch: The Potential of mRNA Vaccines Beyond COVID-19

Potential of mRNA vaccine beyond COVID-19

The breakthrough technology used to create mRNA, Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, could also be used to create vaccines for other diseases such as HIV, influenza and even cancer.

But Kelly McEnany, a professor of medical genetics and biomedical engineering at the University of British Columbia, said BioNTech’s potential for cancer vaccines is “actually very promising” and that it could be used to treat different types of cancer. said it could work for

“This is a cure for cancer patients,” he told Galloway.

This process involves sequencing the patient’s tumor, picking out the proteins most likely to stimulate an immune response, making mRNA from those proteins, and hopefully activating the patient’s T cells. He said it included a stabbing in the arm.

“When T cells are sufficiently activated against a tumor protein, they start killing the tumor,” he said.

Still, people should remain “a little skeptical”.

“Don’t imagine that 10 years from now, everyone will walk in and be treated and cured of cancer.

“But we see this technology being used to treat certain cancers. That’s going to make waves. I’d say that’s a realistic expectation.”

cancer prevention

Brawley has high hopes for the development of cancer vaccines, but feels that the potential for cancer prevention has not been sufficiently explored.

“The cancer death rate in 1900 was one-third the cancer death rate by 2000,” he said. “This 100-year increase of him shows that we have started something to cause deaths from cancer.”

“We need to understand what they are, and indeed we have, and start removing the ones that are responsible for three times as many cancer deaths.”

Our way of life is carcinogenic.– Dr.Otis Brawley

According to Brawley 42% of all cancers in the US due to “identifiable causes”.

These include smoking, which Brawley said causes at least 18 types of cancer, 22.3% of the world population Still using tobacco in 2020, according to the World Health Organization.

in Canada, close to 15% Percentage of people aged 12 and over who smoked daily or occasionally in 2019.

According to Brawley, another serious but overlooked cause of cancer is what he calls an “energy imbalance.”

“It’s not just obesity. You’re burning too many calories, not exercising enough, and storing those calories,” he said. “[It’s] It is the second leading cause of cancer and will become the leading cause of cancer in the United States by the end of this decade. ”

But Brawley said people don’t see overeating or smoking as an urgent cancer-related problem, questioning whether people have the will to change their habits to lower their cancer risk. There is

“The way we live, especially in the last 50 years… we’ve lost sidewalks, we’ve stopped walking, we’ve stopped exercising,” he said. “We bought these big SUVs…loaded with high-calorie processed foods.”

“Our way of life is carcinogenic.”

invest in science

Brawley believes there is “very exciting” research going on in cancer treatment beyond what BioNTech is doing.

“In clinical trials so far, we’ve been able to create situations where pancreatic cancers that normally don’t express antigens can express antigens, unleashing the pancreatic cancer’s immune system,” he said. .

But Brawley said science is now “done with one arm tied behind” due to lack of funding.

“Here in the United States, the National Cancer Institute literally funds 9% of the grants submitted to it that it claims to be worth funding,” he said.

“Some investigators don’t want to cooperate with each other because they are competing for the 9% of the money.”

According to Brawley, this could be key in determining when a cancer vaccine will be developed.

“As long as we are willing to invest in science, we will have vaccine technology that can serve both prevention and treatment.”

Produced by Amanda Grant.