Vaccine would target prostate cancer cells

Cancer researchers at University College Cork are ready to begin testing the vaccine in human trials, The Irish Times reported Friday.

The vaccine uses DNA to stimulate the immune system, which enables the vaccine to target cancer cells while ignoring healthy cells, Dr. Mark Tangney and Dr. Safraz Ahmad wrote in the journal Genetic Vaccines and Therapy.

Tangney and Ahmad, through laboratory trials, have established how the vaccine would be used, and in what quantities, in post-surgery treatment, The Irish Times said.

The vaccine would compliment existing treatments which involve surgical removal of a tumor and radiotherapy by destroying cells that migrate from the surgical site to other parts of the body.

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