The search for a medical cure for cancer is ongoing. It is estimated that 27 per cent of all deaths in Malta are due to cancer.
Researchers at the University of Malta led by professor Pierre Schembri Wismayer were inspired to test a cancer treatment that uses the body’s own immune response to fight tumours more effectively when a friend’s pet rats developed breast cancer. It led them to ask: what if we could weaponise the immune system to kill tumours from the inside?
Analisse Cassar of the University of Malta’s Faculty of Medicine and Surgery will discuss if this cancer vaccine could potentially be the key to making treatment cheaper and more accessible to cancer patients everywhere, and what the hurdles to conducting trials on animals and humans are.
Appropriately, the title of Dr Cassar’s presentation is ‘When a rat got cancer’.
Dr Cassar’s presentation is organised by Malta Café Scientifique, part of the Malta Chamber of Scientists, with the support of the STEAM project, Spazju Kreattiv and the University of Malta. It will be held tomorrow at 7.30pm at Studio B, Spazju Kreattiv, St James Cavalier and is free of charge. For more information visit, www.facebook.com/ or www.kreattivita.org or call 2122 3200.