Malaria vaccine has become a candidate for cancer drugs

Danish biologists from the University of Copenhagen and the University of British Columbia,
while studying the effect of the vaccine against malaria on the body of pregnant women, have accidentally discovered a promising property of this vaccine that can help fight cancer.

Scientists, testing a vaccine against malaria in humans, they said, stumbled upon an interesting fact - parasitic malarial unicellular organisms ( protists ) cling to the placenta with exactly the same proteins that can be found in cancer cells.

“For decades, scientists have been looking for common signs in the processes of growth of the placenta and tumor. The placenta in a few months grows from several cells to an organ weighing 600-700 grams, while functioning relatively autonomously. In a sense, tumors behave similarly, ”said Ali Salanti of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen.

Salanti explained that the team of biologists managed to find out : in the placenta and in the tumor, the indicated protein is responsible for rapid growth. In one experiment, the malaria parasite behaved with the tumor cells in the same way as with the placenta, that is, joined them.

Then, in the laboratory, scientists reproduced the protein used by malaria parasites and added a toxin to it. This couple is able to search for cancer cells in the body. The cell absorbs the protein, after which the toxin is released inside the cell and kills it. This wonderful process has already been recorded both in artificially grown cells and in living mice. This was told by biologist Mads Daugaard [Mads Daugaard], one of the former students of Salanti, with whom they are now working on this task.

Scientists claim that they tested thousands of copies of completely different cancer cells, and 90% of them actively interact with the protein. In mice, experiments were conducted with three types of tumors that were implanted in their organisms. As a result, either a significant decrease in the size of the tumors, or their disappearance in a large percentage of experimental subjects, or the survival of mice, in contrast to those who did not receive the experimental drug, was recorded.

“It appears that malaria protein attaches to tumors and does not pay attention to other tissues. The percentage of surviving mice that received doses of protein and toxin, to the dead, was significantly higher than those who did not receive these doses. Three doses can stop the growth of the tumor and even make it shrink, ”said Ph.D. Thomas Mandel Clausen, already two years in the research team.

Scientists explain that tests on people can be carried out no earlier than four years later. The most important question is whether this method will work in the human body, and whether the body can cope with the doses necessary to achieve results. If this method suddenly works, then the only problem is that such a medicine can not be used by pregnant women.