First, pancreatic cancer. Now melanoma. A treatment for the former, announced in May, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, and which this column wrote about on June 12th, has been fast-tracked through America’s drug regulator and received approval on August 26th.(针对前者的治疗方法已通过快速通道获批。) Meanwhile, on August 19th, interim(临时的，中期的) results of trials for a treatment for the latter—using mRNA technology developed for vaccination against infections—suggest that it is possible to vaccinate someone against(给某人接种疫苗以预防) their own cancer.
先是胰腺癌，现在是黑色素瘤。前者的一种治疗方法于五月在美国临床肿瘤学会年会上公布，本专栏曾在6月12日撰文介绍，现已通过美国药品监管机构的快速通道，并于8月26日获批。与此同时，8月19日公布的针对后者的治疗试验中期结果——该疗法利用为感染性疾病疫苗开发的mRNA技术——表明，有可能为某人接种疫苗来对抗其自身的癌症。
In recent years an entire branch of medicine—immunotherapy(免疫疗法)—has been deployed(部署，运用) to encourage the immune system to detect and destroy tumours. One of its oldest approaches, though, vaccination, has never really worked. Billions have been spent, yet the field is notorious for(因…而臭名昭著) its broken promises(未兑现的承诺).
近年来，医学的一个完整分支——免疫疗法——已被用来鼓励免疫系统检测并摧毁肿瘤。然而，其最古老的方法之一——疫苗接种——却从未真正奏效。数十亿美元已经投入，但该领域却因屡屡食言而臭名昭著。
The idea of a cancer vaccine is to alert the immune system to mutated(突变的) proteins, known as neoantigens(新抗原), found in tumours. If the system clocks(识别出) these as foreign it will eliminate cells that have them. The idea could not be made to work(无法使之奏效), though. Focusing on a single protein was not enough, for a tumour could stop making it. And some early vaccines were, in any case, aimed at the wrong proteins. But an important reason for failure was that tumours often suppress an immune response.(但失败的一个重要原因是肿瘤常抑制免疫反应。) The arrival of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which stop this suppress(抑制)ion, revived interest in cancer vaccines. Would such vaccines work, researchers wondered, if given alongside checkpoint drugs?
癌症疫苗的理念是让免疫系统警觉肿瘤中发现的突变蛋白，即新抗原。如果免疫系统将这些蛋白识别为外来物，就会清除携带它们的细胞。然而，这一理念一直无法实现。仅针对单一蛋白是不够的，因为肿瘤可能停止制造该蛋白。而且，一些早期疫苗无论如何都瞄准了错误的蛋白。但失败的一个重要原因是肿瘤常常抑制免疫反应。被称为检查点抑制剂的药物能够阻止这种抑制，它们的出现重新点燃了人们对癌症疫苗的兴趣。研究人员想知道，如果与检查点药物同时使用，这类疫苗是否有效？