This past Saturday, February 4, was World Cancer Day. Created in 2000, this day is meant to raise awareness, improve education, and spur action for a world where access to life-saving cancer treatment and care is widely available and equitable for all.
Sadly, most of us have been affected by cancer – whether it be friends, family, or even ourselves, cancer does not discriminate.
From my own personal experience, I lost my mum to cancer several years ago, and it causes me great pain that she couldn’t get to know her grandkids. In 2020, there were an estimated 18.1 million cancer cases worldwide.* However, due to advancements in the field of nucleic acid medicines, our ability to fight the scourge of cancer has gotten significantly stronger.
Patients no longer have to rely solely on traditional treatment approaches, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which can have debilitating side effects.
Significant progress in the field of RNA vaccines has allowed the development of additional therapeutic vaccine approaches. Some RNA- based vaccines are designed to target specific motifs or markers on the surface of cancer cells, with the goal of targeting just those cells and killing them. Highly individualized approaches, such as personalized RNA vaccines, can be made specifically for an individual patient’s cancer type. And finally, there is cell therapy which uses a patient’s cells, or cells from a donor, and manipulates them using nucleic acids to be infused back into the patient and more effectively attack the cancer.
While there is still work to be done to research and continue developing these treatments, these advancements are showing incredible results in more effectively fighting cancer.
I am so proud to be here at Maravai, where we are one of many companies supporting these critical, groundbreaking innovations in cancer research, prevention, and treatment.
Cheers to all of you #MiracleMakers!
I truly hope it inspires you that what we do has the opportunity to change the path of cancer treatment so that, eventually, no more families have to suffer the loss of a loved one. We must continue to innovate – that is how all new breakthrough treatments and technologies will be discovered. The more knowledge we have, the more treatments we develop, the more access we can create, and the more people can be cured.
I would encourage you to become an advocate for cancer research and participate in events that raise awareness and funds, like our Maravai Foundation partner Curebound.
There are so many ways to get involved and be part of achieving a world without cancer. Learn more on worldcancerday.org or the American Association for Cancer Research’s National Cancer Prevention Month website (also this February!)