Researchers are conducting tests for a universal vaccine, which could help fight 90 per cent of all cancers, on humans for the first time.

The vaccine targets a molecule in about 90 per cent of all cancers. They tested the vaccine on patients with blood cancer and found that they patients had developed immunity to the disease after receiving the vaccine. In the study, three out of seven patients were free from the condition after receiving the full treatment.

The therapeutic vaccines are designed to prepare the body to fight cancer instead of prophylactic vaccines that are aimed at preventing the disease from occurring in the first place. The researchers involved in the study believe that the experiment could also be help for treating breast, prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers.

If the planned are tests are successful, the vaccine called, ImMucin could be available in the market by the year 2020. Researchers from Vaxil Biotheraputics, a drug aompany and Tel Aviv University focused on a protein called MUC1. The MUC1 is produced more in cancerous cells than healthy cells.

A sugar that it is `decorated' with has a distinctive shape. The vaccine `trains' the immune system to recognize the rogue sugar and turn its arsenal against the cancer. The misshaped MUC1 sugar is found in 90 per cent of all cancers.

A statement from Vaxil Biotheraputics said, "ImMucin generated a robust and specific immune response in all patients which was observed after only 2-4 doses of the vaccine out of a maximum of 12 doses. In some of the patients, preliminary signs of clinical efficacy were observed."