Cancer vaccine allows body to kill tumours - Telegraph

A vaccine for cancer that could revolutionise treatment is a step closer after British-based scientists discover a way of harnessing the body's immune system to attack tumours.

Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered how tumour cells protect themselves from the body's natural defences.

By turning off this process, they believe that the body would cure itself of the disease.

In the past attempts to harness the immune system have failed because a protein appears to shield – and even nurture – cancer cells.

But destroying this molecule leaves the cancer completely defenceless and it is killed by the immune system.

At the moment the process has been shown to work in mice but the researchers believe that it should be transferable to humans.

Professor Douglas Fearon, the immunologist who led the study, said it was an "important step" that could radically change cancer treatments.

"I am excited by the research," he said.

"It is possible we have found a very big piece of the jigsaw.
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