Scientist behind coronavirus shot says cancer vaccines could be available in a 'couple of years'

[SunSeeker]

The scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the shots are safe, and the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge — cancer.

Ozlem Tureci, who co-founded the German company BioNTech with her husband, was working on a way to harness the body’s immune system to tackle tumors when they learned last year of an unknown virus infecting people in China.

Over breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they’d been researching for two decades to the new threat, dubbing the effort “Project Lightspeed.”

Within 11 months, Britain had authorized the use of the mRNA vaccine BioNTech developed with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, followed a week later by the United States. Tens of millions of people worldwide have received the shot since December.

https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/scientist-behind-coronavirus-shot-says-cancer-vaccines-could-be-available-in-a-couple-of-years/

[BComplex]

1. Ozlem Tureci and her husband should get the Nobel prize for their research

that might have saved millions and billions of lives this year.

[SunSeeker]

2. Indeed. Including me. I was vaccinated with her Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. nt

[Disaffected]

3. I'm confused about this,

I thought Donald Trump developed the Covid vaccines.

But seriously, this is a profound technological development. If a cancer vaccine can be added to the list (and possibly vaccines for malaria and other infectious diseases) it will be one of the greatest of all time.

[SunSeeker]

4. Yes, cancer killed my mom at 73, and it damn near killed me at 43.

Cancer causes incalculable misery to the people of this planet.

[Disaffected]

6. Indeed, I'm a survivor too and

I have lost several friends and relatives much too soon.

[Nonhlanhla]

5. I lost a dear friend to cancer this week

She was only 48 years old, and one of the kindest people I've ever known. So 100% yes to a cancer vaccine so that people like her don't lose their lives long before it's their time.

And it looks like "Project Lightspeed" beat "Operation Warpspeed" this past year!