Scientists announce the launch of a "pioneering" vaccine for cancer and heart disease that "could save millions of lives"

Experts say that new vaccines to treat a range of diseases, including cancer, will be available by 2030 to save millions of lives.

Moderna, a leading pharmaceutical company that developed a successful Covid-19 vaccine, said the new cancer vaccines show "tremendous promise," and Dr. COVID-19" has put pressure on many years of work.

It is hoped that these vaccines will be able to treat cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases and "all kinds" of other conditions, Dr. Burton added.

"We will get this vaccine and it will be very effective, and it will save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives," he told The Guardian newspaper. "I think we will be able to offer specific cancer vaccines against different types of tumors to people all over the world."

A number of other pharmaceutical companies are also working on vaccines aimed at treating cancer and other diseases.

And last January, it was announced that cutting-edge research into developing mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines for cancer patients would be accelerated after the launch of the successful Corona vaccine in the United Kingdom.

BioNTech, the German company that co-produced the COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer, will partner with the government to deliver 10,000 in-person treatments to patients in the UK by 2030.

Under the plans, cancer patients will have early access to trials that explore personalized mRNA therapies, including cancer vaccines. Such vaccines would contain a "genetic blueprint" to stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells.

The mRNA technology in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine works by transferring the genetic instructions of the harmless “spike” proteins found on the Corona virus to the body. The instructions are received by the cells that produce the spike protein. These proteins, or antigens, are then used to tell the immune system's antibodies and other defenses what to look for and attack. The same approach will be used to prime the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells. 

Scientists explain that a mRNA-based cancer vaccine alerts the immune system to the presence of cancer already growing in the patient's body, so that it can attack and destroy it, without destroying healthy cells.

This involves identifying the parts of a protein on the surface of cancer cells that are not found in healthy cells that are most likely to trigger an immune response, and then creating an mRNA molecule that will tell the body how to make them.

Doctors take a biopsy from a patient's tumor and send it to a lab, where the genetic material is sequenced to identify mutations not found in healthy cells.

Then a machine learning algorithm determines which of these mutations is responsible for driving the growth of the cancer. Over time, it also learns which parts of the abnormal proteins these mutations encode, which are more likely to trigger an immune response. Then, the mRNA of the most promising antigens is synthesized and packaged into a personalized vaccine.

Cancer trials can begin by the second half of this year. Access to the trials will be through the Cancer Vaccine Launch Panel, which is being developed by NHS England and Genomics England.

This launch pad will help quickly identify large numbers of cancer patients who could potentially qualify for trials and explore potential vaccines across multiple types of cancer.

The company aims to help patients with cancer in its early and late stages. If cancer vaccines are successfully developed, these could become part of standard care.