伦敦-据辉瑞/BioNtech新冠肺炎疫苗背后的一对夫妇称，世界可能只需要几年就能出现癌症疫苗。
“我们觉得治愈癌症或改变癌症患者生活的方法就在我们的掌握之中，”Ozlem Tureci教授告诉英国广播公司新闻在周末的采访中。她的丈夫Ugur Sahin教授与她共同创建了德国制药公司BioNTech，他认为癌症疫苗可以在“2030年之前”广泛使用。
这对夫妻二人在2008年创立了BioNTech，最初是利用mRNA技术开发和生产个性化癌症免疫疗法的治疗方法。但是当疫情病毒来袭时，他们采用这种技术制造了第一种也是最有效的新冠肺炎疫苗。
几十年来，科学家们一直在研究癌症疫苗。一种方法是教会免疫系统识别并摧毁癌细胞——最理想的是从一开始就阻止癌症的生长。此外，还有其他类型的疫苗用于治疗癌症患者，包括一种FDA批准的用于晚期前列腺癌患者的癌症疫苗。
该公司网站称:“从一开始，我们的重点就一直是开发人体免疫系统的全部潜力，以成功帮助解决癌症和传染病。”
在最近的采访中，两位教授解释说，他们开发COVID疫苗的经验有助于加快他们在癌症疫苗方面的工作，因为它将mRNA技术引入了主流。
An employee holds up a vial of an oncological product under development, at the BioNTech research institute in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany, on Oct. 5, 2022.
Andre Pain/法新社
“我们几十年来为癌症疫苗开发所做的工作一直是开发新冠肺炎疫苗的顺风，现在新冠肺炎疫苗和我们在开发它方面的经验回馈了我们的癌症工作，”图瑞西说，并解释说，“mRNA充当了蓝图，让你告诉身体生产药物或疫苗...当你将mRNA用作疫苗时，mRNA就是敌人‘通缉海报’的蓝图——在这种情况下，是区分癌细胞和正常细胞的癌症抗原。”
“在创纪录的时间内开发出几种COVID疫苗显示了mRNA疫苗技术的可能性，有一天它可能成为帮助战胜癌症的有效治疗方法，”英国癌症研究中心研究信息负责人Sam Godfrey博士说。
“正如科学是我们走出疫情的途径一样，科学也是我们战胜癌症的途径。我们乐观地认为，在未来，我们将看到mRNA技术和其他令人兴奋的疫苗方法为医生提供更多的治疗选择，以帮助战胜癌症，”Godfrey补充说。
许多其他制药公司，包括疫苗制造商Moderna，也在研究针对特定癌症的mRNA疫苗。
“使用疫苗治疗癌症是一个令人兴奋的新兴领域，”戈弗雷说。“我们已经与Vaccitech合作，试验世界上首批肺癌治疗疫苗之一，我们正在资助尖端研究，了解病毒和疫苗技术如何激活免疫系统对抗癌症。”
这种方法并非没有障碍。例如，BioNTech疫苗需要为每个人定制。然而，对胰腺癌的初步研究表明，该疫苗可能有助于延缓癌症复发，尽管还需要更多的研究。
“我们在癌症试验中治疗的每一个步骤、每一个患者都有助于我们更多地了解我们反对什么以及如何解决这个问题，”图瑞西说，然后补充了一句警告:“我们总是不太愿意说我们将有治愈癌症的方法。我们有许多突破，我们将继续努力。”
Cancer vaccine may be ready by 2030, say founders of COVID vaccine makers BioNTech
LONDON --The world could be only a few years away from a cancer vaccine, according to the couple behind the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine.
"We feel that a cure for cancer or to changing cancer patients' lives is in our grasp," professor Ozlem Tureci toldBBC Newsin an interview over the weekend. Her husband, professor Ugur Sahin, with whom she cofounded the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, said he thought cancer vaccines could be widely available "before 2030."
The husband-and-wife duo founded BioNTech in 2008 originally to develop and produce treatments for individualized cancer immunotherapy, using mRNA technology. But when the pandemic hit, they adapted this technology to create one of the first and most effective COVID-19 vaccines.
Scientists have been working on a cancer vaccine for decades. One approach is to teach the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells -- ideally preventing cancer from growing in the first place. Further along are other types of vaccines designed to treat people who already have cancer, including one FDA-approved cancer vaccine for people with advanced prostate cancer.
"From the very beginning, our focus has always been on exploiting the full potential of the body's immune system to successfully help address cancer and infectious diseases," the company's website says.
In this recent interview, the two professors explained that their experience of developing the COVID vaccine could help accelerate their work on a cancer vaccine as it launched the mRNA technology into the mainstream.
"What we have developed over decades for cancer vaccine development has been the tailwind for developing the COVID-19 vaccine, and now the Covid-19 vaccine and our experience in developing it gives back to our cancer work," Tureci said, explaining that "mRNA acts as a blueprint and allows you to tell the body to produce the drug or the vaccine ... and when you use mRNA as a vaccine, the mRNA is a blueprint for the 'wanted poster' of the enemy -- in this case, cancer antigens which distinguish cancer cells from normal cells."
"The development of several COVID vaccines in record time showed the possibilities of mRNA vaccine technology, which could one day become an effective treatment to help beat cancer," Dr. Sam Godfrey, research information lead at Cancer Research U.K., said.
"Just as science was our route out of the pandemic, science is our route to beating cancer. We're optimistic that, in the future, we will see mRNA technology and other exciting vaccine approaches giving doctors more treatment options to help beat cancer," Godfrey added.
Many other pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine maker Moderna, are also working on mRNA vaccines to target specific cancers.
"Using vaccines to treat cancer is an exciting emerging field," Godfrey said. "We've already partnered with Vaccitech to trial one of the world's first therapeutic vaccines for lung cancer, and we are funding cutting-edge research learning how virus and vaccine technology might activate the immune system against cancer."
This approach is not without roadblocks. For example, the BioNTech vaccine needs to be custom-designed for each person. However, a preliminary study in pancreatic cancer suggested the vaccine might help delay cancer reoccurrence, though more research is needed.
"Every step, every patient we treat in our cancer trials helps us to find out more about what we are against and how to address that," Tureci said, before adding a note of caution: "We are always hesitant to say we will have a cure for cancer. We have a number of breakthroughs and we will continue to work on them."
