Cancer stem cell vaccine shows anti-tumor effect

Scientists have discovered a new technique that could help in the advancement of cancer vaccines. For the study, a research team extracted stem cells from two mouse models and used them to prepare a vaccine by priming antibodies and T cells. “This is a major breakthrough in immunotherapy research because we were able to use purified cancer stem cells to generate a vaccine, which strengthened the potency of antibodies and T cells that selectively targeted cancer stem cells,” Qiao Li, a research assistant professor in the department of surgery at the University of Michigan, said. According to Li, these stem cells were found to be much more effective than the unselected tumor cells normally used in immunotherapy trials and had an anti-tumor effect. The research team also found that cytotoxic T lymphocytes from cancer stem cell-vaccination hosts were capable of killing cancer stem cells in vitro.