By Fergus Walsh
How does the pancreatic cancer vaccine work?
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A trial has begun on a vaccine treating pancreatic cancer, which has the lowest survival rate of all common cancers.
More than 1,000 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer have joined the TeloVac trial at 53 UK hospitals.
Vaccines are usually associated with preventing infections, but this is part of a new approach to try to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.
The trial involves regular doses of vaccine together with chemotherapy and compares this with chemotherapy alone.
The vaccine contains small sections of a protein, telomerase, which is over-produced by cancer cells. The aim is to stimulate the immune system to recognise the telomerase which sits on the surface of the cancer cells and to target the tumour.
“For someone who’s never smoked and hardly ever drank, it was a big shock”
Rhona Longworth Patient
Professor John Neoptolemos from Royal Liverpool University Hospital, who is helping to co-ordinate the trial, said: “The problem is tumours are clever and are able to turn the immune cells into traitors which help to guard the tumour.
“The vaccine takes away the masking effect of the tumour.”
Pancreatic cancer has the worst survival rate of all common cancers. Just three in 100 patients survive the disease for five years or more.
Rhona Longworth, 43, who was diagnosed with the cancer in February, said: “For someone who’s never smoked and hardly ever drank, it was a big shock.
“I just hope the vaccine works and I’m one person who goes on to live a happy, healthy life after this.”
Joan Roberts, 69, said the vaccine appeared to have few side effects and she is keeping her fingers crossed about the impact on her cancer.
“I’m pleased that it’s stable and it hasn’t got any bigger. You’ve got to remain positive,” she said.
“There is rarely positive news about pancreatic cancer. It has the worst survival rate of all common cancers – worse even than lung cancer”
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The TeloVac trial is being funded by Cancer Research UK. The charity is supporting trials against a range of cancers, using vaccines or antibody treatments to stimulate the immune system.
Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician Professor Peter Johnson said: “One of big problems with cancer treatment is you are almost always left with a few malignant cells and it is from those few cells that the cancer can regrow.
“If you can programme the immune system to recognise those cells and get rid of them altogether or keep them in check then you can effectively stop the cancer from growing back lifelong.”
The South Korean manufacturer of the vaccine, KAEL-GemVax, is planning a lung cancer trial later this year using the same technology.
Last year the first therapeutic cancer vaccine was licensed in the US as a treatment against prostate cancer.
The Phase III or final stage TeloVac trial should produce results in just over a year which will show whether the vaccine has a positive effect.
Cancer Research UK is keen to stress that the vaccine is not a cure, but if it works, might prolong life.
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James Bull, 23, said he felt “belittled” and was “shaking” after the incident
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A man has told of how he was ordered to leave a central London pub after a staff member objected to him kissing a man he was on a date with.
James Bull, 23, said he and Jonathan Williams, 26, were thrown out of the John Snow on Broadwick Street, Soho.
Mr Bull said he was “shaking” after a woman claiming to be the pub’s landlady removed them for being “obscene”.
The Metropolitan Police are investigating the incident, while the John Snow pub is yet to comment.
Samuel Smith’s brewery, the owner of the pub, declined to comment on the incident.
“I felt belittled. I felt physically sick and we were both shaking,” said Mr Bull, a charity worker from Kentish Town in north London.
“It made me feel dirty. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”
Mr Bull said a man claiming to be the pub’s landlord first raised objection to their kissing shortly after 0945 BST.
“We were kissing and a guy who claimed to be the landlord came over and told us to stop. I don’t want to see that. It offends me,” he said.
“We had just kissed. It was nothing obscene. He said if we didn’t tone it down, we would have to leave.
“We were going to finish our drinks and leave but another person at the bar said the man had no right to do that.”
Jamie Morton, 23, from Canary Wharf, who witnessed the incident, said: “I was really shocked. I said: ‘That’s outrageous – you can’t say that.'”
Mr Bull said: “We had another drink and, getting up to leave, I gave Jonathan a quick peck on the lips.”
A woman claiming to be the landlady came over and said: ‘You need to leave, you’re being obscene.'”
“The man who said he was the landlord grabbed Jonathan by the collar before we left.”
Mr Morton said: “It was shocking and aggressive. There was a lot of venom and anger inflicted on these polite guys who were were genuinely doing nothing wrong at all.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “Police are investigating an incident which occurred at approximately 1050 BST on Wednesday at a venue in Broadwick Street, W1.
“There have been no arrests and inquiries are ongoing.”
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The US Congress is set to approve a budget that would cut $38.5bn (£23.6bn) from last year’s spending levels in the remainder of the fiscal year.
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Several Labour MPs are refusing to hand out leaflets backing Yes to AV because they say the campaign implies they are lazy and corrupt.
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Libyan rebels have been battling Col Gaddafi’s forces along the country’s northern coast
Foreign ministers from Nato countries are due to meet in Berlin, with Libya at the top of the agenda.
The UK and France have been pushing for other countries to increase the military pressure on Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Airstrikes led by the US, France and Britain began last month. Nato has since taken leadership of the mission.
Ahead of the Berlin talks, the “contact group” on Libya issued a statement calling on Col Gaddafi to stand down.
The BBC’s Stephen Evans reports from Berlin that foreign ministers will be trying to find a coherent strategy whilst holding different views over what the role of armed force from outside should be.
Tasks in the Libya mission include policing the arms embargo with ships and enforcing the no-fly-zone, which involves flying but not attacking targets on the ground.
The UK and France want more countries involved in the most aggressive role, that of attacking targets on the ground, with the obvious candidates being Italy and Spain, our correspondent says.
The US has scaled back its role in Libya, though on Wednesday it clarified that US jets were still carrying out bombing raids on Libya’s air defences.
“The [rebel] Transitional National Council is not having problems finding the weapons they need and friends to show them how to use them”
French official
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is due to attend the meeting in Berlin, condemned the Gaddafi regime’s “continued brutal attacks on the Libyan people”.
“In recent days, we have received disturbing reports of renewed atrocities conducted by Gaddafi’s forces,” she said in a statement.
Meeting in Paris late on Wednesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to step up military pressure on Col Gaddafi, a French official said.
A French official who briefed reporters said that the coalition should have “all the means it needs”, and that it should show “total determination” to end the sieges of the rebel-held western towns of Misrata and Zintan.
The official said France was not arming rebels, but “that doesn’t mean we don’t sympathise with those who do”.
“The [rebel] Transitional National Council is not having problems finding the weapons they need and friends to show them how to use them,” he added.
Britain said it was to provide the rebels with 1,000 sets of body armour, and that 100 satellite phones had already been sent.
Meanwhile, Libyan Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim accused Qatar of supplying rebels with French-made anti-tank missiles and sending military trainers to help rebels in the eastern city of Benghazi, reports said.
He also said Lebanese militants were helping the rebels. The claims could not be immediately verified.
On Wednesday the contact group, which includes Western powers, their Middle Eastern allies and international organisations, met rebel leaders in Doha, Qatar.
It agreed to continue to provide the rebels with “material support”, and to consider channelling funds to them.
Libyan Finance Minister Abdulhafid Zlitni told journalists in Tripoli that $120bn (£74bn) of Libyan assets had been frozen abroad under international sanctions, and that it would be “financial piracy” to channel any of the money to rebels – as rebel leaders have proposed.
In Libya on Wednesday rebels reported more heavy fighting in Misrata, where Col Gaddafi’s forces have been trying to dislodge rebels.
Nato later saying that it had attacked munitions bunkers 13km (8 miles) from the Libyan capital, while Libyan TV reported other airstrikes in the Libyan cities of al-Aziziya, Sirte, and Misrata.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that more than half of Libya’s population of six million might eventually require humanitarian aid.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
