Moderna says vaccines for cancer, heart disease could be ready by 2030

Published

2 years ago

April 9, 2023

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A pharmaceutical firm that produced a leading Covid-19 jab said vaccines against cancer as well as cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases can be ready by 2030, which could potentially save millions of lives.

Modernas chief medical officer Paul Burton believes the company will be able to offer vaccines for all sorts of disease areas in as little as five years.

Studies into the vaccines have shown tremendous promise, Dr Burton told British newspaper The Guardian, adding that his company is developing cancer vaccines that target different tumour types.

We will have that vaccine, and it will be highly effective, and it will save many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. I think we will be able to offer personalised cancer vaccines against multiple different tumour types to people around the world, he said.

Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are a leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

An estimated 17.9 million people died of cardiovascular diseases in 2019, said WHO, while cancer accounted for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths.

Dr Burton also told The Guardian that multiple respiratory infections could be covered by a single injection.

This would allow vulnerable people to be protected against Covid-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus a virus that causes mild, cold-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, Dr Burton said messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) therapies could be available for rare diseases for which there are currently no drugs.

I think we will have mRNA-based therapies for rare diseases that were previously undruggable, and I think that 10 years from now, we will be approaching a world where you truly can identify the genetic cause of a disease and, with relative simplicity, go and edit that out and repair it using mRNA-based technology.

Vaccines based on mRNA teach cells to make a protein to prompt an immune response.

Moderna and drugmaker Pfizer-BioNTech were the first to use the technology to create the mRNA vaccines used to fight Covid-19.

Dr Burton attributed the progress of the vaccines to advancement in the field of mRNA, with some experts saying that 15 years of progress are now in the final stretches due to the quick roll-out of the Covid-19 jabs.

I think what we have learnt in recent months is that if you ever thought that mRNA was just for infectious diseases, or just for Covid-19, the evidence now is that thats absolutely not the case, The Guardian quoted him as saying.

It can be applied to all sorts of disease areas; we are in cancer, infectious disease, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, rare disease. We have studies in all of those areas, and they have all shown tremendous promise. More On This Topic MOH supporting development of mRNA cancer vaccines in Singapore Moderna, Merck see positive results from skin cancer vaccine In December 2022, Moderna and pharmaceutical company MSD announced that an mRNA cancer vaccine they are jointly developing reduced cancer recurrence or death in melanoma patients by 44 per cent in a phase two clinical trial.

Scientists said a high level of investment is needed to maintain the progress.

Professor Andrew Pollard, a director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chair of Britains Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said it was important not to lose sight of the threat of a new pandemic.

If you take a step back to think about what we are prepared to invest in during peacetime, like having a substantial military for most countries… Pandemics are as much a threat, if not more, than a military threat because we know they are going to happen as a certainty from where we are today. But were not investing even the amount that it would cost to build one nuclear submarine, he told The Guardian.

Sports

Ted Williams’ 1946 MVP award sells for over $500K

Published

20 mins ago

November 17, 2024

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Ted Williams' 1946 MVP award sells for over 0K

Associated Press

Nov 17, 2024, 06:55 PM ET

A rare souvenir postcard picturing Hank Aaron as a rookie with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues sold for nearly $200,000 at a baseball memorabilia auction that also included Ted Williams’ 1946 AL MVP award, which went for $528,750.

The Aaron postcard from the scrapbook of scout Ed Scott, who discovered Aaron, went for $199,750 following a bidding war that soared past the pre-sale estimate of $5,000-$10,000, Hunt Auctions said.

The auction included 280 items from Williams’ personal collection that had been held by his daughter, Claudia, who died last year. Among the other items were a silver bat awarded for his 1958 batting title, which sold for more than $270,000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented to him by fellow naval aviator George H.W. Bush, which went for $141,000.

The sale also included items from the collection of Rutherford Hayes Jones, the business manager of the Washington Giants, one of the earliest Black baseball teams. The trove was discovered in 2001 in a suitcase, where it had been unseen for 40 years.

A first batch of items from Claudia Williams’ collection went up for auction in 2012 at Fenway Park and garnered more than $5 million.

World

It’s a stunning shift in US policy – but Biden’s announcement will trigger fury and fresh threats from Moscow

Published

2 hours ago

November 17, 2024

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It's a stunning shift in US policy - but Biden's announcement will trigger fury and fresh threats from Moscow

Joe Biden’s belated decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied, long-range missiles inside Russia will be cheered by Kyiv and will almost certainly prompt the UK to follow suit.

But the stunning shift in US policy – just weeks before Donald Trump takes over as US president – will also trigger fury and fresh threats from Moscow at a time of increasing uncertainty about the future course of its war.

President Vladimir Putin has warned the West they would be playing with fire if they allowed Ukrainian forces to launch Western-supplied cruise and ballistic missiles at Russia, saying it could even trigger a global conflict.

British and US officials, though, have repeatedly advised their respective capitals not to be intimidated by Moscow’s sabre rattling.

Ukraine war latest: Biden lifts ban on Russia strikes

Yet there has been hesitancy, particularly in Washington, over the unleashing of US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) ballistic missiles beyond the borders of Ukraine.

However, it seems that a move by North Korea to send thousands of its troops to fight with Russia has changed US calculations.

The New York Times, which was among the US media organisations to break news of the Biden administration’s decision on long-range missiles, reported that the first time the American weapons will be used inside Russia will likely be against Russian and North Korean troops battling a Ukrainian incursion in the Russian region of Kursk.

While a significant step up in support for Ukraine, the ability to use American long-range missiles inside Russia is not a war-winning development.

But it does expand Kyiv’s capacity to hit important military targets deliberately positioned by Russian commanders far back from the frontline. This includes stockpiles of missiles, drones and other ammunition used to strike Ukraine.

Just as important as the military impact, though, is the political signal that the US decision sends to the Kremlin about Washington’s willingness to defy Russian warnings about dire consequences should Mr Biden dare to grant Ukraine the permission it’s so long been seeking.

The dramatic move by the United States comes after months of lobbying by Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A key thing to watch now will be how Mr Putin reacts the first time an American missile kills Russian soldiers on Russian soil.

Moscow does not want a direct war with the United States and NATO – nuclear-armed forces with far greater combined firepower – but the Kremlin could well ramp up an already heightened campaign of sabotage and other forms of hybrid warfare across Europe.

Another important reaction to track will be how Mr Trump responds to Mr Biden’s move and whether he continues to allow Ukraine this permission once he takes over as the US commander-in-chief.

The president-elect has vowed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine quickly but he has not said how. Yet he has voiced fierce opposition to the continued gifting of vast quantities of American weapons to the Ukrainian military.