<i>Skin cancer vaccine may be within reach</i>
An Australian scientist who developed a vaccine for cervical cancer said Sunday a vaccine which could prevent some skin cancers may be possible within a decade.
Professor Ian Frazer said that tests of the vaccine on animals had proven successful and that human trials could begin as soon as next year.
"We can teach the immune system the trick it needs to fight the viruses that cause these skin cancers relatively easily with a vaccine, but getting them to go to the right place and do the right thing is the challenge," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"And what we've learned is a trick where we can overcome that particular block."
Frazer, who will deliver his findings to the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress on Monday, said the vaccine would protect against squamous cell carcinoma but not the more deadly melanomas.
He said a vaccine developed from the research, which began in 1985, was still a decade away.
"It's taken us that long to understand how the immune system works in the skin so that we can make the necessary steps to get the breakthrough," the Queensland University researcher said.
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