Russia has developed its own cancer vaccine, the country’s news agency TASS reports.

Andrey Kaprin, general director of the Russian Health Ministry’s Radiology Medical Research Center, told Radio Rossiya that it is an mRNA vaccine against cancer and will be distributed to patients for free.

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

Earlier, Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, shared with TASS that pre-clinical trials have shown that the vaccine can suppress tumor growth and prevent possible metastases.

“Pre-clinical trials of the vaccine have shown that it suppresses tumor growth and possible metastases,” Andrey Kaprin told TASS.

Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in televised comments that “we have come very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of the new generation”.

“I hope that soon these will be used effectively as methods of personalized medicine,” he said, speaking at a Moscow forum on future technologies.

How do mRNA vaccines work against cancer?

An mRNA vaccine uses a short piece of messenger RNA (a molecule that carries specific instructions from DNA) to instruct the body’s cells to produce a specific protein that binds to cancer cells.

This triggers the immune system to recognize and attack those cancer cells, teaching the body to effectively target the disease.

Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated pathogens, mRNA vaccines take advantage of the body’s own cellular machinery to create a precise immune response tailored to the cancer being treated.