Huge UK boost for lung cancer as new vaccine given the green light [Video]

Scientists have been given the go-ahead to create thousands of doses of a new potentially groundbreaking lung cancer vaccine for people at high risk of the disease.

Experts at the University of Oxford and the Francis Crick Institute and University College in London are using technology similar to that used in the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine which was rolled out to combat the spread of Covid.

The first-of-its-kind jab – called LungVax – works by using a strand of DNA to train the immune system to recognise certain “red flag” proteins found in lung cancer cells, known as neoantigens, and destroy them.

Using up to £1.7m in funding given by charities, Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation, it is planned the team will manufacture 3,000 doses of the vaccine.

In the UK, lung cancer is the third most common form of the disease but the most deadly, causing more than 34,000 deaths every year.

The majority of these (72 percent) …