The first step toward developing a prostate cancer vaccine is complete. Though a human prostate cancer vaccine is still many steps away, this discovery has set the stage to make it possible.
Most people think of vaccines as something given to prevent disease from developing.
In actuality, a vaccine refers to any treatment that stimulates the immune system to fight off a disease, completely or partially, either before you get it or while you already have it. Developing vaccines to help the immune systems of cancer patients fight the disease has shown real promise, particularly in skin cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 31,500 men will die of prostate cancer in the U.S. this year. This new target was discovered by Marcella Fasso, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow studying in the laboratory of James Allison, PhD, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. This is the first one, as far as I know.