From cancer vaccines to new generation radio-therapy: the breakthroughs that could save millions

Thousands of NHS patients will soon be able to access trials of personalised cancer vaccines in a groundbreaking “match-making” service called the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad. Leah Hardy looks at how miracle jabs are just one part of the story of how tantalisingly close science is to curing cancer

UK researchers are testing a world-first blood test for brain cancer and the hope is there will then be a vaccine to cure it (Alamy/PA)

Had we not had the Covid pandemic, thousands of cancer patients may still be waiting for the breakthrough in medicine which would save their lives. As it is, thirty hospitals have so far signed up to the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad which will match patients with vaccine trials drawing on mRNA technology used to create current Covid jabs.

Designed to prime the immune system to recognise and destroy any remaining cancer cells and reduce the risk of the disease recurring in years to come. More than 200 patients in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Sweden will be recruited to the trial and will receive up to 15 doses of the personalised vaccine. The study is not due to be completed until 2027, but Dr Victoria Kunene, trial principal investigator from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, told the BBC: “I think this is a new era. The science behind this makes sense.”

The truth is, cancer has never been so survivable. The facts speak for themselves. In the 1970s, only one in four people in the UK survived their cancer for a decade or more. Today, at least half of cancer patients will do the same. Figures from 2020 show that more than 75 per cent of people with cancer survived at least one year after diagnosis. And thanks to astonishing scientific breakthroughs, things will only get better.