Russia has announced a major breakthrough in cancer treatment, claiming to have developed a vaccine designed to treat cancer patients. If verified, this could become the most significant medical discovery of 2024.
The statement mentioned that, “Russia has developed its own mRNA vaccine against cancer, it will be distributed to patients free of charge." Oncology experts, both in India and worldwide, are experiencing a mix of skepticism and excitement. While the announcement signifies a major breakthrough, it falls short of being backed by reliable data and comprehensive details.
While cancer vaccines are already in development, breakthroughs remain elusive to date. Both Pfizer and Moderna, which made Covid19 m-RNA vaccine, are already working in this arena but are yet to report any major success. (Image: Shutterstock)
Although cancer vaccines are under development, significant breakthroughs have yet to be achieved. Both Pfizer and Moderna, the companies behind the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, are actively involved in this field, but they have not yet reported major successes.
While vaccines have long been used to protect against bacteria and viruses, creating vaccines for cancer presents a greater challenge. Cancer cells closely resemble healthy cells, making it difficult for the immune system to identify them as threats. Furthermore, each person's tumor is unique, with distinct markers, adding another layer of complexity to the development of effective cancer vaccines, which require advanced and personalized approaches.
What’s the news?
Alexander Gintsburg, the Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, announced that pre-clinical trials have demonstrated the vaccine's ability to inhibit tumor growth and prevent metastases. He stated that the vaccine is set to be released in early 2025 and will be made available free of charge to Russian citizens.
Russian officials have also stated that they are developing personalized cancer vaccines utilizing artificial intelligence.
“Now it takes quite a long to build [personalised vaccines] because computing of how a vaccine, or customised mRNA, should look like uses matrix methods, in mathematical terms. We have involved the Ivannikov Institute which will rely on AI in doing this math, namely neural network computing where these procedures should take about half an hour to an hour," Gintsburg, who is Russia’s vaccine chief, told local media.
He explained that artificial neural networks could significantly reduce the time needed to develop a personalized cancer vaccine. Currently, the process is time-consuming, but AI could shorten it to "less than an hour."
Regarding AI training, Gintsburg mentioned that an experimental dataset consisting of 40,000 to 50,000 tumor sequences, along with identifying antigen compatibilities in a patient and converting them into protein or RNA, would be required. “This would help determine whether or not this combination can be used for the individual," he said.
How Does the Vaccine Work?
Russian officials have not disclosed specific details about the trial data, vaccine efficacy, or other necessary information to substantiate their claims. They have only stated that they have developed an mRNA-based vaccine for cancer treatment.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) has gained recognition as a powerful tool in treating various diseases, particularly malignant tumors, due to the remarkable clinical results of mRNA vaccines, which utilized lipid nanoparticle technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, scientists at Pfizer and Moderna, two major US pharmaceutical companies, built upon their work in mRNA cancer vaccine development when creating their COVID-19 vaccines, as reported in the medical journal Science Direct.
mRNA vaccines function by introducing a strand of messenger RNA into the body, instructing cells to produce a specific protein. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a vital molecule involved in numerous biological processes within living cells.
The immune system recognizes this protein as foreign and generates antibodies to combat it. This method can be tailored to train the immune system to specifically identify and target cancer cells.
However, this is not the first attempt to develop a cancer treatment using this technology. Over the past three decades, numerous trials have been conducted worldwide with limited success and significant failures, utilizing various technologies.
Data and Proof: Insights from Indian Experts
Indian experts believe it's premature to celebrate. Dr. Gaurav Dixit, head of the haemato-oncology unit at Artemis Hospital in Gurugram, emphasizes the need for more data before drawing conclusions.
“Vaccines are available currently for a few cancers which are thought to be due to viral infections. I am not sure if they are talking about a particular cancer or all cancers in general… I would wait for the final data to come out before getting very excited," he said.
Dr. Pragya Shukla, the head of the Clinical Oncology Department at Delhi State Cancer Institutes, informed News18 that she plans to adopt a "wait and watch" approach. “It’s too early to say anything. To have a common vaccine for all cancers is too good to be true as all cancers have different etiopathogenesis," she said.
She said that “even if it’s true, it’s not clear which phase is the trial at. Normally it takes at least 10-15 years to make any vaccine available on the market."
In the same vein, Dr. Satya Prakash Yadav, the director of pediatric hematology oncology and bone marrow transplant at Medanta Hospital, states that, “cancer vaccine research has been going on for last 25 years. There has been no big breakthrough as yet."
Globally, many experts have echoed the concerns raised by Indian doctors. For example, Professor Kingston Mills, a distinguished immunologist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, shared his views with Newsweek: “Until we see data from a clinical trial, there has to be scepticism about this."
“There’s nothing in scientific journals that I can see about it. That’s where you usually would start reading, as a scientist, about a breakthrough. I don’t see any paper about this, so I have nothing to go on in terms of what the science is," he said.
This doesn't mean that Russian scientists haven't created a vaccine for certain types of cancer; as Mills stated, “The idea of a cancer vaccine is real."
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