Covid-19 and Cancer: A "life-saving" link

The Birth of a New Generation Cancer Treatment

It’s been four years since we started to hear about COVID-19. Almost two years went by as we witnessed numerous deaths, intermittent lockdowns and an anti-vax discourse that was adopted by millions around the world.

It was a breath of fresh air when Pfizer announced the launch of its vaccine. AstraZeneca, Moderna, J&J and others followed suit and we came to a point when the mortality rate from COVID came down and we could head back to normality.

But the launch of these set of vaccines marked the start of a new era of treatment. The technology used was an advancement of previous vaccine technology and it marked the launch of the mRNA vaccine. In August 2024, a 67 year old man named Janusz Racz became the first person in the country to receive a new mRNA vaccine, this time to fight small-cell lung cancer.

So what is the mRNA vaccine and how can it be used to fight cancer?

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What is mRNA technology?

mRNA vaccine technology is a method of creating vaccines that use synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA) to instruct cells in the body to produce a protein that triggers an immune response, helping the body recognize and defend against specific pathogens like viruses.

In summary, these vaccines delive synthetic mRNA into the body, which instructs cells to produce a harmless protein unique to the target virus (like the spike protein in COVID-19). This protein then appears on the cell’s surface, triggering the immune system to recognize it as a threat and create antibodies and immune cells against it.

These types of vaccines confer various advantages including:

• Rapid Development: mRNA vaccines can be designed and manufactured more quickly than traditional vaccines, which require growing weakened or inactivated viruses in labs.

• Non-Infectious: Unlike vaccines that use live viruses, mRNA vaccines do not contain any part of an actual virus, so there is no risk of infection from the vaccine.

• Adaptability: mRNA vaccines can be rapidly modified if a virus mutates, as scientists can adjust the mRNA sequence to match changes in the virus's proteins.

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So how can mRNA vaccines help fight cancer?

The answer is tumour markers. Well.. that’s part of the answer. If you recall, we use certain tumour marker blood tests to help aid the diagnosis of cancers such as ovarian cancer. Now what if we produced a vaccine that is designed to encourage the cells of the body to produce these tumour markers, allowing the immune system to be ready and primed in case such cancers arise or mounting a response to cancers which may already exist?

In theory, this could allow for more targeted cancer treatment hence avoiding some of the classical side effects of chemotherapy which also target normal cells. It also means that cancer therapy can be “compounded”, in other words, instead of staggering therapy so as to not to overwhelm the body, it can be combined with other treatments to provide a comprehensive approach to cancer treatment.

Genius right?

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What Does the Future Hold?

The UK is currently the world leader in cancer therapy and more specifically, mRNA vaccine trials. For those interested in improving cancer care, there is huge funding available for higher studies in cancer therapy and could be an interesting opportunity for those who are research inclined. Currently, the main points of research include the use of mRNA vaccine technology in:

• Lung cancer therapy

• Melanoma

• Bowel Cancer

I think we’re in a really exciting phase and this is certainly a space that we’ll be keeping you updated on!

Until next time ;)

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Renal Blood Interpretation

Blood interpretation is tough. We historically held live webinars but through feedback understood that clinicians wanted some more time to go through the content. It is for this reason we have been building out CPD on-demand service for clinicians countrywide. Here we carefully record, edit and upload presentations on “tricky" subjects such as blood interpretation. It’s a working progress but so far we’ve released modules on gastro, haematology and now renal blood interpretation.

We’ve also kept the price incredibly low and for £19.99 you will receive:

• Tutorial on blood interpretation

• All slides provided for reference

• CPD certificate provided

• 1 year access for all the above

So if you’re after some awesome blood interpretation CPD, check out our website and book on today :)

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