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Scientists Develop Colony of Mice That Fight Off Virulent Cancer

Scientists at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University have developed a colony of mice that successfully fight off virulent transplanted cancers. “The mice are healthy, cancer-free and have a normal life span,” the 10-member team reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online edition to be published the week of April 28. The transplantation of the cancer cells in these special mice provokes a massive infiltration of white blood cells that destroy the cancer, said Zheng Cui, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the lead scientist.

Vaccine technique shows potential against common form of lung cancer

In a demonstration of vaccine therapy’s potential for treating lung cancer, scientists report that a prototype vaccine boosted the natural immune response to tumors in a small group of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Moreover, the vaccine was found to be non-toxic and well-tolerated. Published in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, findings from the Phase I clinical trial will provide an impetus for further efforts to develop a vaccine against NSCLC, a difficult-to-treat condition that accounts for roughly 80 percent of all lung cancer cases.