Putin calls future introduction of Russian cancer vaccine a breakthrough

The introduction of a cancer vaccine created in Russia will be a breakthrough. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this at a meeting with the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA), Veronika Skvortsova, on November 25.

The head of FMBA told the head of state about the agency's innovative developments in the field of biotechnology, including oncovaccines. Skvortsova noted that it will take about a year more to test all components separately and together, and after all these tests, the Russian personalized cancer vaccine will begin to be used.

"It will still be a breakthrough," Putin replied.

The FMBA head said that a cluster led by the Lopukhin Federal Scientific-Clinical Center for Physico-Chemical Medicine (FSCC PHM) of the FMBA has developed a technology to recognize the mutations that caused the appearance of a tumor in a particular person and identify the neoantigens to which his immune system reacts. Within these substances, fragments are identified that make the immune system work against cancer. Then such fragments need to be synthesized, and on their basis to produce a vaccine that will help the body to fight the tumor.

Skvortsova added that the FMBA tried to create such vaccines in several variants, using different technologies, and managed to achieve high results in their testing on animals with intestinal cancer.

Earlier, on October 12, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. N.F. Gamalei Alexander Gintsburg said that the first to receive the personalized Russian oncovaccine will be patients with melanoma (skin cancer). The choice is explained by the fact that this is a superficial disease and in its case it will be easier to observe the effect of the drug. Later, patients with other types of tumors will also receive the vaccine, but there will be no mass testing because the drug is created individually for each person.