With the recent deaths of legends David Bowie and Alan Rickman due to cancer, the growing demand for a miracle cancer cure has been on everyone's minds.
Precision medicine has been used as customizing treatments for patients, using disease causing genes to drugs match which just a percentage of the population carries.
The experimental treatment of a neoantigen vaccine can be used to prepare the immune system to attack the malignant cells of the body.
Studies have presented evidence that the tumors of the patients are as unique as the patterns of freckles on the face of brunette kids. This just proves the concept that every cancerous cell is unique, therefore requiring unique vaccines to treat them.
Although there are no such therapeutic vaccines that have been given approval, the concept that the immune system can be used as an effective measure to curb cancer have led scientists and researchers from major cancer centers to launch clinical trials and find companies to commercialize them.
The concept of fast yet cheap DNA sequencing has made individual therapy practical, thus the number of interested investors who are in full support of startups, according to Tech Insider.
Although there have been several failed attempts of curing cancer through natural methods, the concept of neoantigen vaccine is considered an exception in the crowd.
Recently, after decades of research and disappointments, the approach of immunity boost has been a success. With the help of two immune-based drugs, which also includes the drug prescribed for former president Jimmy Carter for advanced melanoma, the cancer-curing miracle seems not far away.
According to the Vice President Joe Biden, cancer can be cured by "moonshot" which are built on a rare phenomenon - cancers which can melt away without any treatment.
With the neoantigen vaccines, the process can be possible, and that thought is reflected in Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee's speech, "The hope is that we can turn cancers from ones that don't attract immune cells into those that do." Dr. Jaffee is the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore.
Thus, it is yet to be seen if the neoantigen vaccine can actually deliver beyond the expectations of its creators, and be indeed a magical miracle for cancer patients.
