Russian cancer vaccine to roll out this fall – creator
Russian cancer patients are set to be treated with a domestically developed vaccine in the coming months, according to Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, as cited by TASS.
The new vaccine is a personalized treatment designed to target malignant tumors using the patient’s own genetic information. Developed with the help of artificial intelligence, the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology allows the vaccine to be tailored to each individual’s specific cancer profile, offering a potentially more effective and targeted therapy.
“All documentation was submitted to the Ministry of Health some time ago and we hope that the Herzen Institute, the Blokhin Center, and our institute will soon receive approval to begin production of the first vaccine types personalized against melanoma,” Gintsburg said during a roundtable event.
He added that patient groups have already been formed and their genetic data analyzed, and that researchers are ready to begin treatment “within a month or a month and a half.”
Earlier this month, Veronika Skvortsova, head of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency, stated that the new cancer vaccine demonstrated high effectiveness during preclinical testing and is ready for clinical application.
Gintsburg recently said that the first to receive the personalized mRNA vaccine would be 60 melanoma patients, split between the Herzen Moscow Oncology Research Institute and the Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology.
The Gamaleya Institute is known internationally for developing Sputnik V, Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine. Researchers at the institute are also working on an HIV vaccine based on the same mRNA technology used in the new cancer treatment.
