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Article: NEW JAPAN PEPTIDE VACCINE HOLDS PROMISE AGAINST VIRUSES, CANCER.
- Article from:
- AsiaPulse News
- Article date:
- February 9, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Asia Pulse Pty Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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TOKYO, Feb 9 Asia Pulse - The National Institute of Infectious Diseases in conjunction with NOF Corp. (TSE:4403) has developed a promising new kind of peptide vaccine technology to fight cancers and viral infections.
Peptides are short fragments of proteins, and peptide vaccines use these instead of entire cell-surface proteins as antigens to help the body generate an immune response. The thinking is that even though viruses rapidly mutate, certain parts of their cell-surface proteins remain unchanged. A vaccine that is based on this kind of constant factor could provide broader immunity.
But because foreign peptides are quickly degraded and expelled by ...