Russia has developed an mRNA vaccine against cancer, Russian news agency TASS has reported. The vaccine will be distributed to cancer patients for free, General Director of the Radiology Medical Research Center of the Russian Ministry of Health, Andrey Kaprin.

The vaccine has been developed in collaboration with several research centers and is expected to be released for public use by early 2025.

The vaccine’s pre-clinical trials had shown that it suppresses tumor development and potential metastases, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Alexander Gintsburg told TASS.

What Is An mRNA Vaccine?

mRNA or messenger-RNA vaccines use specific parts of the infectious agent like its protein, sugar, or coating. mRNA vaccine gives a message to our cells to make a protein or even just a piece of a protein which are like those of the virus. The protein then triggers an immune response inside our bodies.

Can AI Help Generate Personalised Cancer Vaccines?

Earlier, in an interview with TASS, Mr Gintsburg had said that the use of artificial neural networks could bring down the duration of computing required to create a personalized cancer vaccine to less an hour.

“Now it takes quite long to build [personalized vaccines] because computing of 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.