Russia says it has developed a vaccine against cancer that will be rolled out to patients for free. According to the state-run media reports, the shot will be launched by early 2025 in a bid to treat cancer patients rather than being given to the general public to prevent tumours from forming in the first place.

"Russia has developed its own mRNA vaccine against cancer; it will be distributed to patients free of charge," General Director of the Radiology Medical Research Center of the Russian Ministry of Health Andrey Kaprin has told Radio Rossiya as quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.

Previous comments by Russian government scientists suggest each shot is personalized for the individual patient, which is similar to cancer vaccines that are developed in the West. However, there is no clarity on which cancers the vaccine is designed to treat, how effective it is, or how Russia plans to roll it out.

Even the name of the vaccine has yet to be revealed.

"The vaccine’s preclinical trials had shown that it suppresses tumour development and potential metastases," Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Ginsburg told TASS. Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin had told televised comments that "We are very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation.".

According to local news reports, cancer cases have been spiking across the country, with more than 6,35,000 cases recorded in 2022.

Colon, breast, and lung cancers are believed to be the country's most common forms of the deadly disease, which can be caused by gene mutations that can be inherited, developed over time, or be caused by exposure to things like cigarette smoke or alcohol.

Ginsburg, in a news conference, said the use of artificial neural networks could bring down the duration of computing required to create a personalized cancer vaccine, which is currently a lengthy process, to less than an hour.

"Now it takes quite a long time to build [personalized vaccines] because computing how a vaccine, or customized mRNA, should look like uses matrix methods in mathematical terms. We have involved the Ivannikov Institute, which will rely on AI in doing this math, namely neural network computing, where these procedures should take about half an hour to an hour," Russia’s vaccine chief said.

The idea behind treatment vaccines is that cancer cells contain substances called tumour-associated antigens that are not present in normal cells or, if present, are at lower levels.

Treatment vaccines can help the immune system learn to recognize and react to these antigens and destroy cancer cells that contain them.

Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Health and around the world.