A team of researchers affiliated with multiple entities in the Netherlands and one in Switzerland reports that a vaccine targeting a certain protein is effective in treating multiple types of cancers in several kinds of animals. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes the protein they discovered that is unique to cancer tumors and the vaccine they developed to treat patients.

In 2006, the same research team found that a protein called vimentin is produced in cancerous tumors and exists only in the blood that feeds such tumors. Subsequent work showed that the protein assisted with the creation of new blood vessels that enable tumor growth and that it also played a role in turning off the immune response. The researchers then developed a vaccine that would prevent the creation of vimentin inside tumors. They then tested the vaccine, called Griffioen, on several different laboratory animals with skin, brain and colorectal cancer and found varying degrees of success. Most recently, they tested it with dogs that had developed bladder cancer independently.

The researchers treated 35 of the dogs with their vaccine. Half of them survived to the end of the 400-day test period, and two of them fully recovered. They also treated one of their older pet dogs who had developed bone cancer and was expected not to live very long. The tumors disappeared and the dog returned to normal health soon thereafter.

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