Mayo Clinic trial: Massive blast of measles vaccine wipes out cancer. Stacy Erholtz was out of conventional treatment options for blood cancer last June when she underwent an experimental trial at the Mayo Clinic that injected her with enough measles vaccine to inoculate 10 million people.
The 50-year-old Pequot Lakes mother is now part of medical history. The cancer, which had spread widely through her body, went into complete remission and was undetectable in Erholtz’s body after just one dose of the measles vaccine, which has an uncanny affinity for certain kinds of tumors. Simple molecule prevents mole rats from getting cancer. Brandon Vick/University of Rochester A hardy intercellular matrix may be the key to the naked mole rat's ability to skirt cancer.
The same molecules that endow naked mole rats with springy, wrinkled skin also seem to prevent the homely rodents from contracting cancer.
Gene Therapy. Targets and Mechanisms. Detection and Diagnosis. Other Treatments. Other Stuff. Scientists Develop Cancer-Killing Protein. Some 90 percent of people who die from cancer do so, say experts, because the disease has metastasized, or spread.
Researchers say they believe they can dramatically reduce the mortality rate with a protein combination that kills cancer cells on contact. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are often effective at treating people with a solid tumor, but once the cancer has spread and formed tiny tumors at distant sites, chances for a successful recovery are dismal. Now researchers at Cornell University in New York have isolated a protein that goes by the acronym of TRAIL that causes metastasizing cancer cells to implode on contact. The biomedical engineers led by Mike King have attached TRAIL to immune system white blood cells so it circulates throughout the body, ready to destroy.
“And so now, in the blood flow, all of your white blood cells become essentially cancer-killing machines.