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Biotech / Medical : T/FIF Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (262)	11/23/1998 9:02:00 PM
From: Miljenko Zuanic	Respond to of 1073

Maybe one day researchers will step on effective vaccines. Any idea on this carbohydrate antigens? Miljenko Prostate Cancer Vaccine in Clinical Trials 1.23 p.m. ET (1823 GMT) November 21, 1998 NEW YORK— A vaccine aimed at fighting prostate cancer is being tested in men with prostate cancer, U.S. researchers report. The approach, based on synthetic versions of cancer cell surface molecule, may also be applied to other cancers, including breast cancer, they say. Dr. Scott Kuduk, of Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York, and colleagues synthesized two carbohydrate antigens, Tn and TF, from the cell surface of tumor cells from the colon and prostate. They "clustered" these antigens on a carrier molecule. When they vaccinated mice with the molecules, the mice produced antibodies to the tumor surface molecules, Kuduk and colleagues report in the November issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Vaccines typically are designed to target proteins, but the research team notes that one way to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells is that cancer cells often have unusual carbohydrates on their surface. The difference should enable this carbohydrate-based vaccine to exclusively target cancer cells. On the basis of these and other findings, Kuduk and colleagues have begun testing vaccines based on the Tn and TF antigens in men who have undergone surgery for prostate cancer. The aim of the clinical trial is to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence in these patients, Kettering Chair Dr. Samuel J. Danishefsky told Reuters Health. "The clinical application is for someone who has had prostate cancer or breast cancer that has been discovered early enough that it has been removed or reduced in size by surgery or other means," he said. "The idea is to... stand guard over those chemical structures that would have to be expressed (on cancer cells)." "Early indication suggests that the synthetic vaccines are well tolerated," the investigators report in the journal. Although no clinical data have yet been published, Dr. Philip O. Livingston from the Institute says in a statement that "patients are definitely producing antibodies to Tn." Danishefsky said that the Sloan-Kettering researchers also have another prostate cancer trial underway using a different antigen, and plan further trials testing carbohydrate vaccines for breast cancer.