Scientists claim they have taken a “very positive step” towards creating a universal vaccine against cancer. Experts say that the vaccine makes the body’s immune system attack tumours as if they were a virus. Commenting on the new research which was published in Nature, cancer experts Professor Jolanda de Vries and Professor Carl Figdor, from Radboud University in the Netherlands, wrote: ‘This nanomedicine platform may give a strong boost to the vaccine field, and the results of forthcoming clinical studies will be of great interest.’ Professor Alan Melcher, from the Institute of Cancer Research, said: ‘Although the research is very interesting, it is still some way away from being of proven benefit to patients.’ The Independent reports: Writing in Nature, an international team of researchers described how they had taken pieces of cancer’s genetic RNA code, put them into tiny nanoparticles of fat and then injected the mixture into the bloodstreams of three patients in the advanced stages of the disease. The patients’ immune systems responded by producing “killer” T-cells designed to attack cancer. The vaccine was also found to be effective in fighting “aggressively growing” tumours in mice, according to researchers, who were led by Professor Ugur Sahin from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany. “[Such] vaccines [...]