
Putin says Russia is close to creating cancer vaccines
The Hindu
Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that Russian scientists are close to developing cancer vaccines, with hopes of effective individual therapy.
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian scientists were close to creating vaccines for cancer that could soon be available to patients.
Mr. Putin said in televised comments that "we have come very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation".
"I hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual therapy," he added, speaking at a Moscow forum on future technologies.
Mr. Putin did not specify which types of cancer the proposed vaccines would target, nor how.
A number of countries and companies are working on cancer vaccines. Last year the U.K. government signed an agreement with Germany-based BioNTech to launch clinical trials providing "personalised cancer treatments", aiming to reach 10,000 patients by 2030.
Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Co are developing an experimental cancer vaccine that a mid-stage study showed cut the chance of recurrence or death from melanoma - the most deadly skin cancer - by half after three years of treatment.
There are currently six licensed vaccines against human papillomaviruses (HPV) that cause many cancers, including cervical cancer, according to the World Health Organization, as well as vaccines against hepatitis B (HBV), which can lead to liver cancer.

Climate scientists and advocates long held an optimistic belief that once impacts became undeniable, people and governments would act. This overestimated our collective response capacity while underestimating our psychological tendency to normalise, says Rachit Dubey, assistant professor at the department of communication, University of California.






