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A NEW STUDY into how the body battles certain cancers has indicated that we can train our immune systems, or ‘vaccinate’ them in order to fight the disease more effectively.
The American study, published in the academic journal Science, performed tests on three people with varying levels of skin cancer.
Skin cancer tumours are basically highly-mutated versions of our genetic code, with no two exactly alike, each containing hundreds of random mutations unique to every patient.
The researchers involved, mainly based at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, analysed the skin tumours of the three subjects, looking to predict unique indicators that would be displayed by the cancer cells.
After data analysis a computer algorithm then predicted which areas of each tumour would be the best target for a vaccine.
Each of the three patients (who all had advanced tumours) was then given a personalised vaccine in 2013.
One is now cancer-free, another remains stable, while the third patient’s tumour shrank after the vaccine treatment before returning to its original size and remaining stable.
The research team now say their vaccine has been definitively proved to provoke a response from a patient’s immune system.
“These custom-designed vaccines can elicit a very strong immune response,” said Dr. Gerald Linette, the specialist leading the trial.
Our results are preliminary, but we think the vaccines have therapeutic potential based on the breadth and remarkable diversity of the T-cell response.
“The trial shows that it may be possible to create vaccines that are tailored to the specific genetic mistakes in a patient’s cancer,” says Dr Alan Worsley, of Cancer Research UK.
At the moment it’s not clear how effective this would be at killing cancer cells in the body and improving survival, but it sets the stage for creating vaccines that are designed to target each patient’s individual tumour in the future.”
There are, as there always will be, certain drawbacks.
For starters, the vaccines that have been produced thus far take between three and four months to manufacture for each individual, although it is expected that can be reduced to a month or six weeks.
Before the vaccine can be produced en masse it will have to go through rigorous clinical trials. And finally, the cost may well be prohibitive.
The positives outweigh the negatives however.
Given the nature of the tumours being treated, if successful the vaccines could eventually be used to effectively treat other highly-mutated cancers such as those found in the lung or bladder.
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You can be sure he’ll be a permanent citizen of this country in no time as per the Kalergi plan. He’d be ejected out of Poland or Hungary after a terrible prison stay but not in weak Western Europe controlled by Sutherland and Soros.
@Ranty McCrank: Where are the open border champions now? He probably is one through his child thanks to meeting an Irish woman…
@Ranty McCrank: this forum explains the tolerance of such activity:
@Ranty McCrank: we’re wussies
@BrianMcB: Explain your open-border point please?
You’re alluding to something vaguely. What is the point you are making?
Are you suggesting we shut down all inward migration?
@Danny Rafferty: how about controlling immigration. Rather than invite all and sundry without restriction why not vet immigrants for illness, criminality and skills and remove them within ,say 10yrs, if they commit a significant crime or is that racist xenophobia?
7 and a half years seems very lenient having regard to the nature and circumstances of this vicious and predatory crime. No contrition, no admission, and he sought to destroy their characters of the victims as part of his vicious defence.
@Fiona deFreyne: joke of a sentence.
Seven and a half years???? That’s just over 3 and a half years per woman he violated, drugged and raped. Enough said really about our justice system.
@WJH: Just want to point out there was no evidence of drugs. I am not denying what they said but there is only the suggestion of drugs. If there was evidence it would have been given. It sounds like they reported it quickly and would have run a blood test.
@WJH: don’t forget the concurrent element of the already laughable sentence…
@Kal Ipers: apparently the rape drug is nearly impossible to detect in tests.
@Kal Ipers: doesn’t matter whether drugs were involved. He was convicted of rape and sexual assault. He is filth, end of story.
@PDiddy: not true. Urban legend
Hopefully he’ll get battered in prison.
@Dj: hopefully but it’s a sad reflection on us as a society when we’re hopeing other criminals deliver justice for us.
He should be fitted for a pair of cement shoes and shown how to swim in them.
Too short, but at least no suspended element. Watch this space for many time wasting, legal aid funded actions brought by this delousional cad.
@Caroline Otoole: The only suspended element of a sentence should involve a tree and a rope.
No comments? Yet? Perhaps this will not be commented on due to his rich South Dublin heritage
@Don Shavago: he’s from Cameroon
@@aidoroch: That sounds a little racist IMHO
@Don Shavago: does it not say in the article he’s originally from Cameroon and then lived in Sligo town? Are you acting thick on purpose or what?
@Don Shavago: what sounds a little racist??? explain me please?? stop using words which you don’t understand
Should be strung up for his actions.
@Ray Farrell: Ah, don’t be racist
@Ray Farrell: …by the nuts. With razor wire.
Just a quick question Tommy. If you think he should be strung up by the nuts with razor wire as punishment, what would you think a suitable punishment for females who commit equally heinous crimes? given they lack nuts.
@Flip off: a solution can be found to that minor mechanical issue
7 years ? Shows how out of touch the judiciary are.
when you have open borders you have to accept the good with the bad this guy should be banned from the country after his release but we know that wont happen, this is a heinous crime against these women
Cultural enrichment.
have your say