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Researchers have developed a plant-based cancer vaccine tailored to a patient's specific tumour type and capable of kick-starting the body's immune response, according to a study issued yesterday.

While they have not yet determined whether the immune response is sufficient to destroy the cancer, the researchers are hopeful the technique could one day lead to a cure for at least some types of the deadly disease.

Senior author Ronald Levy, of the Stanford University Medical Centre, said, ''The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer.''

Professor Levy said he was optimistic the researchers would get positive results from the next clinical trial.

''We know that if you get the immune system revved up, it can attack and kill cancer.''

The process has already successfully cured cancer in mice.

Professor Levy's team tested the vaccine on 16 patients who were recently diagnosed with follicular B-cell lymphoma, a chronic incurable disease.

None of the patients experienced any significant side effects and more than 70 per cent of the patients developed an immune response, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is the first time a plant-based cancer vaccine has been tested on humans.

The plant-based vaccine has a number of advantages.

It can be developed quickly and inexpensively. It does not carry the risk of infection should animal cells be contaminated, and the antibodies produced may also spark a stronger immune response than those developed in mammalian cells.

''Every lymphoma patient has a target on their tumour cells but each patient's tumour has a different version of that target,'' Professor Levy said.

Finding the right target required cloning the genes from the patient's tumour.

Those genes were then injected into a virus which naturally attacked tobacco plants. This virus was scratched on to the leaves of a tobacco plant and it became a ''protein production factor'', Professor Levy said.

A week later, the leaves were ground up and then the protein was isolated and injected into the patient.

''This technology is special because it's fast and very suitable to this customised, personalised approach because each plant can be making a different person's [vaccine],'' Professor Levy said. AFP

Source:www.canberratimes.com.au