LONDON: OvarianVax, a new vaccine which aims to prevent ovarian cancer, is being developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, led by Professor Ahmed Ahmed.
Professor Ahmed said that the world needs better strategies to prevent ovarian cancer.
"Currently, women with BRCA1/2 mutations, who are at very high risk, are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterwards. At the same time, many other cases of ovarian cancer aren't picked up until they are in a much later stage."
The research has been awarded up to £600,000 from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) over the next three years. If the research is successful, clinical trials will then be conducted of the vaccines.
The vaccine will teach the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer making it hopeful to prevent ovarian cancer in the first place.
The research aims to find out which proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells are most strongly recognised by the immune system and how effectively the vaccine kills organoids which are mini-models of ovarian cancer.
"But we now have highly sophisticated tools which give us real insights into how the immune system recognises ovarian cancer," said Professor Ahmed, project lead of the vaccine research team. --AFP