Scientists could make serious progress with using the immune system and vaccines to treat cancer in the future. 

That’s according to biochemical Professor Luke O’Neill, who told Show Me the Science “personalised cancer treatment” could be the future of medicine. 

“What’s happening in cancer research is there been huge advances in the treating of cancer through the immune system,” he said. 

“We’re not there yet, let’s make that clear, but there has been progress in the past five, six, seven years.” 

Real consideration began when it was considered that a tumour could be attacked if the “brake” was taken off the immune system. 

This effectively means you get the immune system to work even harder and remove inhibitors to make the system more aggressive and effective in attacking threats. 

“It's a bit like a barrier comes down and the immune system can get into the tumour,” Prof O’Neill said. 

“The immune system can flood into the tumour and use its wonderful weapons to kill the tumour. 

“The immune system is always attacking tumours - a little tumour might develop in all of us, and the immune system eliminates it.” 

Attacking the tumour with the immune system

Prof O’Neill said ‘checkpoint inhibitors’ have been developed to allow the immune system to fully attack a tumour. 

Some people “effectively are cured” or at least respond very well to the checkpoint inhibitors, while others saw their tumours return. 

According to Prof O’Neill, the overall response rate to checkpoint inhibitors is 20% to 40% at the moment across most forms of cancer. 

Vaccine to treat cancer

More recently, there has been studies into whether a vaccine could prevent cancer in the first place. 

Prof O’Neill noted there are already vaccines against HPV – and there are now talks about how a vaccine could treat other cancers. 

“In other words, can you take a crushed-up tumour, show it to the immune system and train the immune system so it hunts down the tumour like a virus?” Prof O’Neill said. 

There are currently trials into a vaccine to treat melanoma, which is the third – and last – stage. 

Participants in the second stage of the trial found that if they had a vaccine on top of other treatments, the risk of redeveloping cancer was halved. 

With melanoma being the most common cancer in Ireland, with the potential to spread to the body and cause other forms of cancer, great attention will be paid to the final trial for this vaccine. 

Listen back here: