UK :Oxford researchers secure funding for world's first ovarian cancer prevention vaccine

[Mij]

Researchers have been awarded funding from Cancer Research UK to create the world’s first vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer.

Scientists at the University of Oxford are designing OvarianVax, a vaccine which teaches the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer. The team will receive up to £600,000 for the study over the next three years to support lab research into the vaccine.

In this study, the Cancer Research UK-funded scientists will establish the targets for the vaccine. They will 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 mini-models of ovarian cancer called organoids.

If this research is successful, work will then begin on clinical trials of the vaccine. The hope is that in the future, women could be offered this vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer in the first place.
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[Frith]

One of my great grandfathers lost his mother, two sisters and a daughter (my grandmother) to ovarian cancer. My mother had an ovary removed when she had a hysterectomy as the surgeon didn't like the look of it, so I've been having annual screening for some years now. A vaccine would be very good news.

Incidentally, my mother and my grandmother thought this run of bad luck couldn't be a coincidence but both were assured by their doctors that it was just not possible to inherit a propensity for ovarian cancer. You'd have thought a family catastrophe like this would give an intelligent person pause for thought, but apparently not.

 

[MEMarge]

My mother in law died of this, so it would be good news for my daughter. Also my sister in law, her daughter and grand daughter.

Edited to clarify, hopefully

 

[Mij]

We can now envision an end to cervical cancer.

A landmark study yields zero cases in women who got the HPV vaccine at a young age. But obstacles remain, including misinformation.
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I wonder if they'll be able to develop a vaccine for endometrial cancer. It affects mostly menopausal women, and like ovarian cancer most women only find out they have cancer when it's in stage 4.