Researchers in the US have developed personalized cancer vaccines. Highlighting feature of these vaccines is that they target unique genetic errors in a patient’s tumor.

The research published in the journal Science has unveiled that safety tests were carried out on three people. From them, it has been found that the immune system could be trained to flight skin cancer.

The researchers are quite happy with the initial results and said that it marks as a significant step towards tailor-made cancer vaccines. The charity Cancer Research UK has also praised the test results.

Tumors are considered to be a genetic mess having hundreds of mutations that vary in every person. The researchers said that the tumors can change the proteins that are present outside the surface of cells and they act like identifying flags.

The researchers based in St Louis and Oklahoma City conducted an experiment in which they have assessed the genetic mutations to know about the new and unique signs that would be passed by the cancer cells.

With an aim to know which would be the best target for a vaccine, the new signs known as neoantigens were also assessed by a computer algorithm. As mentioned above, in 2013, personalized medicines were given to three patients with advanced tumors. These were also the ones treated with another therapy known as ipilimumab.

Result was one patient was in remission and stayed cancer free; the second patient had stable tumors and the third patient witnessed a decline in tumor in the months and the tumor returned to original size and remained stable.

At this stage, the researchers have assessed just the safety part of the vaccine and also, whether or not it incites an immune response. On both the stages, the vaccine proved beneficial.