Dismiss measles vaccine, seizures linkRECENT studies indicate that scientists have made tremendous progress in the development of therapeutic vaccines for cancer, flu virus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and have dismissed the association of measles vaccines with an increased risk of febrile seizures among four to six year olds during the six weeks after vaccination.According to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, scientists may have discovered a new paradigm for immunotherapy against cancer by priming antibodies and T cells with cancer stem cells.A research assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan, United States, Dr. Qiao Li, said, 'this is a major breakthrough in immunotherapy research because we were able to use purified cancer stem cells to generate a vaccine, which strengthened the potency of antibodies and T cells that selectively targeted cancer stem cells.'Cancer stem cells are tumor cells that remain present, and ultimately resistant, after chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Scientists disagree on whether these cells have unique properties, but those, who support the uniqueness idea have argued that these cells regenerate the tumors that lead to relapse.Despite the similar name, cancer stem cells are distinct from embryonic stem cells, and the two avenues of research are separate.For the current study, Li and colleagues extracted cancer stem cells from two immuno-competent mouse models and used them to prepare the vaccine.Li said, 'we found that these enriched cancer stem cells were immunogenic and far more effective as an antigen source compared with the unselected tumor cells normally used in previous immunotherapy trials.'The mechanistic investigations found that when antibodies were primed with cancer stem cells, they were capable of targeting cancer stem cells and conferring antitumor immunity.'The researchers also found that cytotoxic T lymphocytes harvested from cancer stem cell-vaccinated hosts were capable of killing cancer stem cells in vitro.Another novel cancer vaccine is Provenge, which is for prostate cancer. Since it won United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval two years ago, Provenge has been Exhibit A for the idea that a patient's immune system can control or cure cancer. The first therapeutic cancer vaccine to reach the market, Provenge tries to engineer white blood cells, part of the immune system, to vanquish prostate cancer, which killed an estimated 33,720 men in the United States last year.Also, scientists are moving closer to a universal flu vaccine. Israeli company reports good results with supplemental shot in elderly.Multimeric-001, an influenza vaccine now in clinical trials, boosts immunity in elderly people when given as a supplement to the seasonal shot. But supplementation is just a short-term goal: eventually the drug's maker, BiondVax Pharmaceuticals of Ness Ziona, Israel, believes that Multimeric-001 alone could protect against all strains of flu.In a study published in February in the Journal of Clinical Immunology1, BiondVax reported that its Multimeric-001 vaccine was safe and conferred immunity on its own. However, BiondVax thinks that a universal flu vaccine would be a tough sell to regulatory agencies. Part of the challenge is that the standard test for a vaccine's efficacy is based on the presence of antibodies to the ever-changing parts of the haemagglutinin protein on the outside of the virus in a vaccinated person's blood. It's a test their universal vaccine is designed to fail, because Multimeric-001 does not confer immunity to these proteins.Also, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan are closing in on a needle-free vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a major cause of respiratory illness in children under two years of age. Sylvia van den Hurk and her team have developed a vaccine candidate that shows promise against RSV, with human clinical trials about two years away.For most children, RSV infection means a runny nose, dry cough, sore throat, light fever and mild headache. In young infants, the virus can cause pneumonia or bronchiolitis, with a severe cough, high fever, and difficult breathing. Where children have access to good care, including respirators to deliver supplementary oxygen, the outlook is usually good. Where they don't, it's a problem.Van den Hurk, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the U of S College of Medicine and a research fellow at VIDO-InterVac (Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organisation-International Vaccine Centre) said, 'in developing countries and in the northern part of Canada, a lot more babies actually die.'That may soon change. Van den Hurk and her team, including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, have found that the vaccine candidate works in mice and cotton rats. The team recently received a $740,000 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to take the next steps.The team delivers the vaccine through the nose, using a platform technology developed at VIDO-InterVac with funding from the Krembil Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.According to a study by the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Centre that appears in the current issue of Pediatrics, vaccines for measles were not associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures among four to six year olds during the six weeks after vaccination.Funded by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the study of 86,750 children follows an earlier study published in Pediatrics that showed one particular combination of measles-containing vaccine ' the measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox containing vaccination (or MMRV) ' was associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures in one to two year-old children, compared with same-day administration of the separate vaccine for MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and the V (varicella) vaccine for chicken pox.This new study sought to evaluate, for the first time, the risk of febrile seizures following MMRV or separate MMR plus V vaccines among four to six year olds and found no increased risk of febrile seizures.
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