World’s 1st Ovarian Cancer ‘Preventative Vaccine’ in Development

Researchers at the University of Oxford have been awarded £600,000 from Cancer Research UK to create the world’s first vaccine designed to prevent ovarian cancer. Those involved with the research say that the jab in development, known as OvarianVax, will work by teaching the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer. The news of the latest in a raft of cancer jabs in development came in the same week as a new test said to be able to detect 96 percent of ovarian cancers was also announced. Around 7,500 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year in the UK, and it is the sixth most common cancer in females. Scientists believe that women with  “faulty” BRCA1 genes have a higher ovarian cancer risk, and to a lesser extent in women with a faulty BRCA2 gene, compared to women who do not carry these variants....