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Doctors are hoping they don't find in a fly in the ointment of this pioneering treatment
An experimental malaria vaccine could be used to cure nine out ten cancers and banish this "dreaded" disease to the history books, scientists have claimed.
Researchers discovered a potential miracle cure whilst working to devise a way of protecting pregnant women from malaria .
When they produced a potential vaccine, they tested on thousands of samples and were astonished to find that it targeted tumours as well as the mosquito-borne peril.
"We have seen that three doses can arrest growth in a tumor and even make it shrink,” said Thomas Mandel of from the University of Copenhagen.
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Vaccines are generally produced by taking a disease-causing bacteria and reducing its ability to harm humans , before putting this blunted bug into the human bloodstream.
This tricks our immune system into building antibodies capable of swiftly killing the real danger bug if it enters the body.
The Danish malaria vaccine researchers found that the malaria parasite uses a specific carbohydrate protein to attach itself to placenta cells within a woman's uterus.
This protein is found in both placenta and cancer cells, where it is thought to allow cells to replicate quickly.
Scientists noticed the malaria bug also bonded itself to cancer cells.
They isolated the carbohydrate which sticks malaria to both these types of cells and combined with a chemical "warhead" which is lethal to living tissue.
“It appears that the malaria protein attaches itself to the tumor without any significant attachment to other tissue," Mandel added.
"The mice that were given doses of protein and toxin showed far higher survival rates than the untreated mice."
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It is hoped the drug will be tested on humans within four years.
"The biggest questions are whether it’ll work in the human body, and if the human body can tolerate the doses needed without developing side effects," said malaria researcher Professor Ali Salanti.
"But we’re optimistic because the protein appears to only attach itself to a carbohydrate that is only found in the placenta and in cancer tumors in humans.
However, the drug will not be suitable for treating pregnant women.
“Expressed in popular terms, the toxin will believe that the placenta is a tumor and kill it, in exactly the same way it will believe that a tumor is a placenta,” said malaria researcher Professor Ali Salanti.
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Pascal Meier, of the Institute of Cancer Research, told the Daily Express the new research could "could change the way we will treat cancer patients in future".
Lucy Holmes, from Cancer Research UK, added: “Targeting cancer cells and killing them, while leaving healthy cells unharmed, is a key goal.
"This very early research in mice is promising but needs to be confirmed in trials before we know if it will benefit patients.”
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