An Italian research institute has been chosen to lead a European project to develop and mass-produce new vaccines to fight some forms of cancer.
The three-year project will research ways of coming up with cheaper one-size-fits-all vaccines for patients with lymphoma cancer, which affects the lymphatic system, a major component of the immune system.
At the moment, vaccines are made for individual patients but the new types being developed will be useful to anyone suffering from lymphoma cancer.
The National Institute of Tumours in Aviano, north-east of Venice, is coordinating Swedish, Norwegian, British, Dutch and Italian teams, composed of scientists and representatives from Europe's leading biotechnology firms.
The UK's ProImmune, the Netherlands' Pepscan, and Italy's Areta International, which have pioneered ways of using technology for immunotherapy, are participating in the project.
The partnership between researchers and companies is crucial to making the cancer vaccines available to large numbers of patients, medical sources said.
In developing the vaccines, researchers will harvest patients' immune cells and prime them to trigger an attack on tumour cells.
The idea is to rely on the body's own ability to fight cell mutations rather than on pharmaceutical products.
In general, specialists believe that administering cancer vaccines is less costly and less dangerous than more invasive cancer-fighting methods like chemotherapy.
The Aviano Institute has an international reputation in the field of cancer research.
Last month it published a ground-breaking study in the International Journal of Cancer which showed that a diet rich in dairy products, like milk and yogurt, can decrease the likelihood of developing liver cancer by up to 78%.
