The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine

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Cancer patient Kathleen Jade receiving her third dose of an experimental breast cancer vaccine at University of Washington Medical Center - Montlake, on May 30, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
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Updated 27 June 2023
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The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine

SEATTLE, US: The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine.
After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many predicting more vaccines will be out in five years.
These aren’t traditional vaccines that prevent disease, but shots to shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Targets for these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer, with gains reported this year for deadly skin cancer melanoma and pancreatic cancer.
“We’re getting something to work. Now we need to get it to work better,” said Dr. James Gulley, who helps lead a center at the National Cancer Institute that develops immune therapies, including cancer treatment vaccines.
More than ever, scientists understand how cancer hides from the body’s immune system. Cancer vaccines, like other immunotherapies, boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. And some new ones use mRNA, which was developed for cancer but first used for COVID-19 vaccines.
For a vaccine to work, it needs to teach the immune system’s T cells to recognize cancer as dangerous, said Dr. Nora Disis of UW Medicine’s Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle. Once trained, T cells can travel anywhere in the body to hunt down danger.
“If you saw an activated T cell, it almost has feet,” she said. “You can see it crawling through the blood vessel to get out into the tissues.”
Patient volunteers are crucial to the research.
Kathleen Jade, 50, learned she had breast cancer in late February, just weeks before she and her husband were to depart Seattle for an around-the-world adventure. Instead of sailing their 46-foot boat, Shadowfax, through the Great Lakes toward the St. Lawrence Seaway, she was sitting on a hospital bed awaiting her third dose of an experimental vaccine. She’s getting the vaccine to see if it will shrink her tumor before surgery.
“Even if that chance is a little bit, I felt like it’s worth it,” said Jade, who is also getting standard treatment.




Kathleen Jade is examined by Dr. Will Gwin before receiving her third dose of an experimental breast cancer vaccine at University of Washington Medical Center - Montlake, on May 30, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)


Progress on treatment vaccines has been challenging. The first, Provenge, was approved in the US in 2010 to treat prostate cancer that had spread. It requires processing a patient’s own immune cells in a lab and giving them back through IV. There are also treatment vaccines for early bladder cancer and advanced melanoma.
Early cancer vaccine research faltered as cancer outwitted and outlasted patients’ weak immune systems, said Olja Finn, a vaccine researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
“All of these trials that failed allowed us to learn so much,” Finn said.
As a result, she’s now focused on patients with earlier disease since the experimental vaccines didn’t help with more advanced patients. Her group is planning a vaccine study in women with a low-risk, noninvasive breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ.
More vaccines that prevent cancer may be ahead too. Decades-old hepatitis B vaccines prevent liver cancer and HPV vaccines, introduced in 2006, prevent cervical cancer.
In Philadelphia, Dr. Susan Domchek, director of the Basser Center at Penn Medicine, is recruiting 28 healthy people with BRCA mutations for a vaccine test. Those mutations increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The idea is to kill very early abnormal cells, before they cause problems. She likens it to periodically weeding a garden or erasing a whiteboard.
Others are developing vaccines to prevent cancer in people with precancerous lung nodules and other inherited conditions that raise cancer risk.
“Vaccines are probably the next big thing” in the quest to reduce cancer deaths, said Dr. Steve Lipkin, a medical geneticist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, who is leading one effort funded by the National Cancer Institute. “We’re dedicating our lives to that.”




Research scientist Kevin Potts uses ovarian cancer cells to set up an experiment at UW Medicine's Cancer Vaccine Institute on May 25, 2023, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

People with the inherited condition Lynch syndrome have a 60 percent to 80 percent lifetime risk of developing cancer. Recruiting them for cancer vaccine trials has been remarkably easy, said Dr. Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is leading two government-funded studies on vaccines for Lynch-related cancers.
“Patients are jumping on this in a surprising and positive way,” he said.
Drugmakers Moderna and Merck are jointly developing a personalized mRNA vaccine for patients with melanoma, with a large study to begin this year. The vaccines are customized to each patient, based on the numerous mutations in their cancer tissue. A vaccine personalized in this way can train the immune system to hunt for the cancer’s mutation fingerprint and kill those cells.
But such vaccines will be expensive.
“You basically have to make every vaccine from scratch. If this wasn’t personalized, the vaccine could probably be made for pennies, just like the COVID vaccine,” said Dr. Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
The vaccines under development at UW Medicine are designed to work for many patients, not just a single patient. Tests are underway in early and advanced breast cancer, lung cancer and ovarian cancer. Some results may come as soon as next year.
Todd Pieper, 56, from suburban Seattle, is participating in testing for a vaccine intended to shrink lung cancer tumors. His cancer spread to his brain, but he’s hoping to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from nursing school next year.
“I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, either for me or for other people down the road,” Pieper said of his decision to volunteer.
One of the first to receive the ovarian cancer vaccine in a safety study 11 years ago was Jamie Crase of nearby Mercer Island. Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer when she was 34, Crase thought she would die young and had made a will that bequeathed a favorite necklace to her best friend. Now 50, she has no sign of cancer and she still wears the necklace.
She doesn’t know for sure if the vaccine helped, “But I’m still here.”


German lawmakers vote to suspend family reunions for many migrants

Updated 10 sec ago
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German lawmakers vote to suspend family reunions for many migrants

The bill approved Friday is the first legislation on migration since Merz took office
It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection

BERLIN: German lawmakers voted Friday to suspend family reunions for many migrants, part of a drive by the new conservative-led government for a tougher approach to migration.

Parliament’s lower house voted 444-135 to suspend the possibility of family reunions for two years for migrants who have “subsidiary protection,” a status that falls short of asylum.

At the end of March, more than 388,000 people living in Germany had the status, which was granted to many people fleeing Syria’s civil war.

New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February. Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away.

The bill approved Friday is the first legislation on migration since Merz took office. It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection, with authorities making case-by-case decisions on humanitarian grounds rather than granting an automatic right for reunions.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told lawmakers that the change would result in 12,000 fewer people being able to come to Germany each year and “break a business model” for smugglers.

People often know they won’t get full recognition as refugees, “but they set off for Germany because it is known that, even without asylum recognition ... you can have your family follow,” Dobrindt said. “That is a significant pull effect and we are removing this pull effect today.”

Dobrindt said “our country’s capacity for integration simply has a limit.”

Liberal opposition lawmakers decried the government’s approach. Marcel Emmerich, of the Greens, described the legislation as “an attack on the core of every society, on a truly central value — the family.”

“Anyone who wants integration must bring families together,” he said.

The far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany described the move as a very small step in the right direction.

German governments have for years faced pressure to curb migration as shelters across the country filled up. The administration of Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, already had taken some measures including the introduction of checks on all Germany’s borders.

Asylum applications declined from 329,120 in 2023 to 229,751 last year and have continued to fall this year.

Mamdani’s NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say

Updated 13 min 25 sec ago
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Mamdani’s NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say

  • There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed
  • Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur

WASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday.

There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents.

That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement.

Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day long time-frame.

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.

Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.

“We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.

The advocacy group said its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement. About 62 percent of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action said.

People close to Republican President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates said.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, wrote on X on Wednesday that “New York City has fallen” while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had “voted for” 9/11. Also on Wednesday, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa.

President Trump has pursued domestic policies that rights advocates have described as anti-Muslim, including banning travel from some predominantly Muslim or Arab countries in his first term and attempting to deport pro-Palestinian students in his current term.

The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment, has denied claims of discrimination against Muslims. Trump and his allies have said they oppose Mamdani and others due to what they call the Democrats’ “radical left” ideology.


THREATS
The New York City Police Department said earlier this month its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against Mamdani.

Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which documents hate against Asian Americans, and CAIR said attacks against Mamdani mirrored those endured by other South Asian and Muslim political figures, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Republicans have called Mamdani antisemitic, citing his pro-Palestinian advocacy and his criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza after an attack by Hamas militants in October 2023.

Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and has the backing of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish. Lander also ran in the Democratic primary.

Rights advocates have noted rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, with fatal US incidents including the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington and the stabbing of a Muslim child in Illinois.

Mamdani and other Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, said their criticism of Israel is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.


Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia

Updated 35 min 48 sec ago
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Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia

  • Pevkur said Estonia was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary
  • Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday that Estonia's stated readiness to host NATO allies' U.S.-made F-35A stealth jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, posed a direct threat to Moscow.

Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees news outlet on Thursday that Estonia - which borders Russia and is a rotating base for NATO jets tasked with protecting Baltic airspace - was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary.

"If some of them, regardless of their country of origin, have a dual-use capability to carry nuclear weapons it doesn't affect our position on hosting F-35s in any way," the outlet cited him as saying.

"Of course we are ready to host our allies."

Pevkur was speaking after Britain, a NATO member, announced it would buy at least 12 F-35A jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that they would join NATO's airborne nuclear mission.

Asked about Pevkur's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia.

"Of course it would be an immediate danger," Peskov told a journalist from Russia's Life news outlet. He said the statement was one of many "absurd thoughts" voiced by politicians in the Baltic region, which comprises Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"We have practically no relations with the Baltic republics because it is very difficult to make them worse," he said.


Liberia holds funeral for ex-leader Doe decades after assassination

Updated 27 June 2025
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Liberia holds funeral for ex-leader Doe decades after assassination

  • Samuel Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars
  • The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history

ZWEDRU, Liberia: Hundreds of people gathered Friday in rural Liberia for the state funeral of authoritarian former president Samuel Doe 35 years after his assassination, part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation efforts over its violent past.

Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars that killed around 250,000 people and ravaged Liberia’s economy.

He is being commemorated at his home compound in southeastern Grand Gedeh County alongside his wife, Nancy, who died in May and will be buried at the estate.

Liberians gathered along the route Friday as the couple’s caskets – his symbolic, and hers containing her body – were slowly driven through the county capital of Zwedru on the bed of a truck decorated in bunting in the country’s red, white and blue colors.

The state ceremony is being attended by President Joseph Boakai, who declared a period of mourning this week from Tuesday to Friday, with flags flown at half-mast.

His executive mansion Facebook page said the commemorations are part of a “broader effort” meant to “promote national reconciliation.”

The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history.

Infamous warlord Prince Johnson, a key player in the civil wars (1989 to 2003), appeared in a video watching his fighters slowly mutilate and torture Doe to death while he calmly sipped a beer.

Various rumors but little concrete information exists as to the fate and location of Doe’s remains following his death.

Doe’s own rise to power was also steeped in violence.

His 1980 to 1990 rule remains divisive, remembered by many Liberians as a brutal dictatorship, while others recall some transformative measures he implemented fondly.

Liberian Mercy Janjay Seeyougar said in Monrovia ahead of the funeral that she remembered how Doe once gave her a candy, and that during street cleanings he would “stop and be with the people who are doing the cleaning.”

In 1980, Doe, then an army sergeant in his late 20s, led a coup assassinating president William Tolbert, the last in a line of leaders from the Americo-Liberian ruling class comprised of the descendants of former US slaves.

Quickly establishing a regime of terror, Doe had 13 members of the government he had overthrown publicly executed on a beach and his regime subsequently jailed or persecuted many of its opponents.

He was elected in a 1985 presidential vote that many observers said was marked by fraud.

The brutality of his regime, combined with declining economic conditions and favoritism toward the Krahn ethnic group of which he was a member, led to increased unpopularity.


Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine’s southeast

Updated 27 June 2025
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Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine’s southeast

  • At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital
  • Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city

KYIV: A Russian missile attack on Friday killed at least five people and wounded more than 20 in the industrial city of Samar in Ukraine’s southeast, officials said, the second strike on the city in three days.

At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on the Telegram messaging app.

Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city, where an attack on an unidentified infrastructure facility on Tuesday killed two people.

Hundreds of kilometers to the south, in the Kherson region, authorities urged residents on Friday to prepare for extended periods without power after a Russian attack hit a key energy facility.

Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that “Russians decided to plunge the region into darkness.”

In recent weeks Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly its capital Kyiv, more than three years into the war that followed its full-scale invasion.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 363 long-range drones and eight missiles overnight into Friday, targeting a small western city of Starokostiantyniv, home to an important air base. There were no details on damage.