Vaccines
In the case of diseases caused by viruses (e.g., measles, polio, and smallpox) and bacteria (e.g., diphtheria, tetanus, and tuberculosis), vaccines work by exposing people to a weakened or inactivated version of the threat. This allows the immune system to identify these threats based on their specific markers, known as antigens, and mount a response to attack them. These vaccines typically work best preventatively, that is, administered before a person is infected with the bacteria or virus.
Cancer vaccines
Cancer vaccines have been more complex, since viruses and bacteria are foreign agents that our body can recognize, and our immune system reacts because it has been injected with small-scale viruses. We know our enemy.
Cancer is very complex; it involves the uncontrolled reproduction of our own cells. Therefore, our body cannot attack them; it is programmed to do so. The vaccines being developed against cancer teach our body to identify cells with cancerous mutations and, then, attack them.
mRNA-based vaccines
A prepared RNA vaccine is injected into the patient.
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Dendritic cells, which are responsible for our defenses, detect RNA.
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RNA causes these cells to emit signals that reveal cancer: These are tumor antigens.
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Already discovered, defensive cells attack tumor cells and create memory in our body. It's a process very similar to traditional vaccines, which inject external agents such as viruses or bacteria. But this time, we've injected an RNA protein to detect and attack cancer cells.
Each tumor has a unique type of cancer cell, a unique neoantigen. Therefore, personalized vaccines will be important.
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Therefore, artificial intelligence will be crucial, as it will be able to offer the type of the right vaccine for each individual in a matter of days.
Gene editing-based vaccines
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Did you know this miracle began right here, near you, in the salt flats of Santa Pola? There, an underrated scientist, Dr. Francisco Juan Martínez Mógica, observed how bacteria used the Cas-9 protein to cut out damaged sections of DNA and/or replace amino acid sequences that would perform a healthy function.
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At Berkeley University, two scientists solved its problem in humans, and... voilà, we've entered the era of genetic editing, of DNA scissors, of what they call genetic cut and paste. Yes, exactly, like a Word document: cut the bad, paste the good.
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How does it work?
A team of scientists extracts your blood and sequences your genome, observing the sequence that promotes the transformation of healthy cells into cancer cells. Using this technique, they either eliminate or replace the affected portion of your DNA with a correct amino acid chain. This new DNA reading is healthy and can either eliminate the proliferation of mutated cells or use other sequences to attack them.
Car-t cell-based vaccines.
How does it work?
These vaccines result from training cells outside your body that can attack cancer cells. Imagine if a team of scientists extracted cells that play a defensive role, called T cells, from your body and trained them for weeks, like soldiers, to learn how to attack cancer cells.
After strengthening and preparing these cells, they are injected with a vaccine, locate, and destroy your cancer cells, turning your own immune system into an invincible army. This isn't magic; it's used for some types of cancer, such as leukemia, with promising results. It's part of immunotherapy-based medicine, which gets your own body to destroy cancer cells.
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This isn't science fiction, it's reality, and every day counts. That's why we're informing you and encouraging you to work together to end this disease or make it chronic forever.
WE ARE THE CANCER
FEARLESS GENERATION
