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President Joe Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” may well have already been eclipsed as Russian officials issued a bold claim about a new vaccine that would be made freely available — next year.

During his administration, the now lame-duck president set a goal of cutting cancer deaths in half within 25 years as he hoped “to turn more cancers from death sentences into chronic diseases people can live with.”

Now, according to a report from Russian state-owned news TASS, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assurances of a vaccine for individual therapy could be rolling out early next year.

Offering little details, the claim came from Russian Ministry of Health Radiology Medical Research Center General Director Andrey Kaprin who announced a vaccine against cancer that would be given to Russian patients for free starting in 2025.

TASS detailed, “Earlier, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gintsburg told TASS that the vaccine’s pre-clinical trials had shown that it suppresses tumor development and potential metastases.”

Newsweek sought comment from the Russian Ministry of Health as well as the research centers on the injection that would “apparently be used to treat cancer patients, rather than given to the general public to prevent cancer–and it will be personalized to each patient,” but had no response to provide at the time of their own report on the story.

While they provided examples of similar efforts that included work on a skin cancer vaccine by Moderna and Merck & Co, and shots meant to prevent human papillomaviruses claimed to help prevent cervical cancer, personalized vaccines were in the works elsewhere as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center detailed among various trials that it had been testing an mRNA product on pancreatic cancer.

“The vaccines are custom-made for every person. Doctors hope the vaccine can reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer returning after the main tumor is removed by surgery. This potential treatment came through an MSK collaboration with BioNTech, which developed the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,” detailed the cancer center. “The vaccine is given in collaboration with checkpoint inhibitors, drugs that ‘release the brakes’ on the immune system and allow it to mount a stronger attack against cancer.”

Without further information from Russia, Newsweek speculated based on a personalized mRNA treatment for brain cancer, “The way that the treatment works–which may be similar to the Russian vaccine–is that genetic material called RNA is extracted from each patient’s surgically removed tumor.”

“Then, [mRNA]–the blueprint of what is inside each cell–is amplified and wrapped in newly designed fatty nanoparticles, making the tumor cells appear dangerous to the cancer patient’s immune system,” the outlet explained, prompting the immune system to begin attacking the tumor cells within two days.

Kevin Haggerty
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