After reading an offhand reference to this subject in a mag that just came the other day, I searched the New York Times and found the abstract reproduced (and linked) below.  A search of this board showed nothing on the subject, so I thought I should post this.

Vaccine Appears to Prevent Cervical Cancer

By DENISE GRADY (NYT) 1658 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 3

ABSTRACT - Study finds vaccine made by Merck & Co unit can prevent cervical cancer by making people immune to one type of human papillomavirus, sexually transmitted virus that causes 50 percent of cervical cancers; Merck is already testing new version of vaccine designed to work against multiple virus types, preventing 70 percent of cervical cancers; funded study, led by Dr Laura A Koutsky; vaccine, which cannot treat cancer, will be most successful if given to girls and young women before they become sexually active; National Cancer Institute researcher Dr Allan Hildesheim cites need for larger and longer-term trials; photo (M) Scientists are reporting today that they have created the first vaccine that appears able to prevent cervical cancer. The vaccine works by making people immune to a sexually transmitted virus that causes many cases of the disease.

The vaccine is experimental and will not be available to the public for several years.

There is an old joke among AIDS researchers, which goes something like this. "An AIDS researcher asks God: when will there be an AIDS vaccine. God replies: Not in my lifetime."

Possibly you have new evidence that I'm not privy too, but for the duration of the AIDS epidemic, there has not even been a theoretical vaccine methodology that looks promising.

It's typically thought that AIDS vaccines are difficult to make because the virus is a gifted "shape-shifter". That is partially true, because it is of the "lentivirus" (or slow-virus) class, and rapidly changes it's protein envelope to evade detection. But actually, the AIDS virus doesn't even have to do that. Everyone infected with the virus raises antibodies, but these antibodies are neither neutralizing nor protective. The antibodies raised by all vaccine candidates are similarly not protective.

There has been similarly lack of success developing vaccines that stimulate the cellular immunity system. This, too, is not surprising, given that the AIDS virus specifically target cells (i.e., helper lymphocytes, macrophages) critical to the cellular immune response.

If you couple these problems with the fact that the virus can be transmitted through infected cells which bear no AIDS markers on the surface, it seems unlikely that we'll have an effective vaccine anytime soon.

The best "vaccine" that we have is still the barrier protection afforded by latex condoms.

-- Modified on 12/29/2002 12:42:40 PM

-- Modified on 12/29/2002 12:49:51 PM

When is, of course, the big question.

What I know is second hand via the person who is behind the finacial backing of some major research at a well respected (read big and private) university based medical center. And I am lead to believe that the theoritical model is highly correlated at the cellular level and fairly well correlated at the molecular level.


In my formative years I was never aware of funding sources like this but I take it that it is more and more common.  This person is a big time venture capalist with a sharp sense of what looks good and how to find out.  

He had funded a researcher who was not well grounded in the politics of the system but, he felt, none-the-less a brilliant scientist in her own right.  Unfortunately this reseacher died of cancer as she was preparing to present data for animal studies.  Because of the financial gains to be made and the caution that followed, it was slow go to find a replacement.  That has all happened and a major pharmacutical house is about to make an offer to join the research.  That gesture on their part and the enthusiasm with which the financer is speaking of late leads me to think positive thoughts.

I'm thinking insider trading myself...fool that I am.

Having said all that, it may never happen in my lifetime...or the next century, you are right.  But I hope.

You should let us know when they finally publish their results, as they must ultimately even if they are treating it now as proprietary. This will probably happen, once they've filed for a patent.

In addition to the scientific difficulties, vaccine research is among the least lucrative of pharmaceutical endeavors. This is partly because of the huge liability issues which attend any vaccination effort. The business model that you describe, however, is a reasonable one, in which the large drug firm throws some cash to a much smaller, venture capital firm, and the smaller firm shoulders all of the liability problems.

I think, though, that you're right to be cautious on the insider trading aspect, except maybe with the small 'fun' portion of your portfolio that you can readily afford to lose.

And I have a nice peice of Southern Florida real estate that I will be happy to sell you in the mean time.

A couple of biotech companies have vaccine trials in phase III. Results are encouraging, but I suspect that several generations of vaccines need to be developed before the procedure, if at all is more than marginally effective.

The mirror image of vaccine therapy is oncolytic virus theory; take a genetically engineered smallpox of diptheria and inject it into the c-cells directly. These have show great potential so far, but still probably not to market for at least 5 more years.

Although the analog of prostate cancer appears to be breast cancer, there is a developing theory of infection regarding most cancers, best illustrated by HPV causing cervical cancer (and one respected theorist links HPV to certain brainc cancers as well).

Is this the vaccine to which you were referring?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=365216&dir=505&host=3