Cancer Therapy

Scientists alter smallpox vaccine to fight cancer

Published in Vaccine Weekly, April 23rd, 2003

The smallpox vaccine may be reborn - as a cancer treatment.

Scientists are rigging up the vaccine to carry an extra load, genes that signal the immune system to start fighting advanced tumors.

Why use such a risky vaccine to do that job' The same super-reactive characteristics that make smallpox inoculation prone to some bad, occasionally deadly, side effects are, as the altered shots' creator puts it, "an immunologist's dream": They may rev up an immune system that too often misses cancer.

Although still in very early stages of research, the smallpox-turned-cancer shots look promising. They're the latest in a long quest to...

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Source: Vaccine Weekly (2003-04-23)

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