{"id":743702,"date":"2026-08-20T05:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743702\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T05:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:08:17","slug":"vaccine-breakthrough-stops-cancer-returning-in-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743702\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaccine breakthrough stops cancer returning in trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merck and Moderna are calling this a personalised vaccine, meaning it works by targeting an individual patient’s tumour.<\/p>\n

In order to create this new jab, scientists used mRNA technology – which was used for some Covid-19 vaccines – to target specific mutations within the cancer cells by surgically removing a small part of a patient’s tumour and then sequencing its DNA.<\/p>\n

The result is a personalised anti-cancer jab which is specific to the patient’s tumour and instructs the immune system to recognise and attack any tumour cells that remain. <\/p>\n

The two companies are testing other similar personalised vaccines for lung, bladder and kidney cancers.<\/p>\n

Stephane Bancel, chief executive of Moderna, said the findings represent a “pivotal moment” in the field of cancer research.<\/p>\n

Shares in both Moderna and Merck have surged since the announcement, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cancer experts have also hailed the news as positive, but are keen to stress the findings are still early.<\/p>\n

Dr Talisia Quallo, head of prevention and early detection at Cancer Research UK, said the research “shows promise” but said that the interim data still needs to be fully reviewed.<\/p>\n

“It’s vital that research like this continues to be funded so that more people with cancer can have personalised treatment options to help them live longer, better lives”, she added.<\/p>\n

Dr Lennard Lee, a consultant medical oncologist, and associate professor at the University of Oxford, said: “This is certainly good news for patients with melanoma, but the study has much wider implications. It provides proof of principle that personalised cancer vaccines work.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merck and Moderna are calling this a personalised vaccine, meaning it works by targeting an individual patient’s tumour.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-743702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}