While a recent media report was more hype than science, it did focus on a promising pathway for cancer treatments.



More than 40 years after Nixon called for "a national commitment for the conquest of cancer", is victory finally in sight?

An article published in the Telegraph on Sunday suggested that a weapon able to crush cancer had arrived. Headlined "'Universal' cancer vaccine developed", the piece about Israeli Vaxil BioTherapeutics' new drug ImMucin, has seen a deluge of interest.

Unlike November 2011 reports about the drug that were met with little fanfare, this piece has been covered by dozens of news outlets and shared 19,000 times on Facebook alone. According to the Telegraph, Vaxil's wonderdrug, "which targets a molecule found in 90 percent of all cancers, could provide a universal injection that allows patients' immune systems to fight off common cancers including breast and prostate cancer."

The molecule in question is Mucin1 (or MUC1), a sugar-coated protein that lines the inner surface of lung, stomach, and pancreas to defend against pathogens. In nearly all tumors MUC1 can be found and "a certain portion of MUC1 molecule ... will transform cells and make them cancerous", says Dr. Jeffrey Schlom, head of the Immunotherapeutics group at the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute within the National Institutes of Health. On tumors, MUC1 possess a different sugar makeup than on normal cells, so cancerous MUC1 can be targeted without damaging normal cells. For these reasons, according to Schlom, scientists have long targeted MUC1 in cancer therapies.