Zero deaths from cervical cancer in HPV-vaccinated cohort

Hello Nature readers,
This week, we celebrate a milestone on the road to cervical cancer elimination, hear that a drug for a rare blood cancer has been approved and learn that more than a thousand oncology clinical trials could lose funding from the US government.

Deaths hit zero in HPV-vaccinated cohort

For the first time on record, no one aged 20 to 24 died of cervical cancer in England over a four year period. The milestone is tied to the success of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which was first offered to girls aged 12-13 in 2008, with 90% uptake. “This is a real triumph for vaccination, a real triumph for science and a real triumph for public health,” says cancer epidemiologist Peter Sasieni.

First-in-class drug approved for rare cancer

A drug called pivekimab sunirine (Decnupaz) has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in people with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasms (BPDCN), a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer. The first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate, produced by pharmaceutical company AbbVie, pairs a CD123-targeted antibody with a chemical that damages DNA and kills cells. The drug was approved following a clinical trial in 84 adults with newly diagnosed or hard-to-treat BPDCN, in which 23 newly diagnosed people saw their blood cancer disappear over 21.5 months.

Clinic exposes people to bleach gas

A London-based clinic is offering an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment to people with advanced cancer. The protocol involves wrapping people in plastic from the neck down and exposing their skin to chlorine dioxide gas. There is no scientific evidence that bleach can help treat cancer but that hasn’t stopped the idea from being popularized among proponents of alternative therapies online.

Unregulated AI isn’t the answer

In her “heart of hearts”, computer science researcher Emma Pierson is hoping that artificial intelligence will disappoint when it comes to accelerating biomedical research, even if that means she personally loses out. Pierson carries a tumour-causing mutation and stands to benefit from the AI-driven ‘elimination of most cancer’ predicted by Dario Amodei, the head of AI company Anthropic and Pierson’s former mentor, in a 2024 essay. Pierson doesn’t believe AI will find cancer cures because “cancer data are finite and come from biological experiments and clinical trials that cannot run at silicon speeds”. But, even if run-away AI were destined for greatness in healthcare, Pierson fears this progress will come at an unacceptable cost to our sense of purpose and our humanity.

The proteins that protect us from mutations

Our genomes are full of mutations that have the potential to cause harm. But often they don’t, thanks to a family of proteins that ‘buffer’ the mutation’s ill effects. These proteins, called HSPs, have been on scientists’ radar for decades, but advances in techniques such as cell screening and genetic editing are giving new insight into the proteins’ roles. Researchers are now trying to unpick how buffer proteins have influenced human evolution, and are investigating how to exploit them in treatments for diseases such as breast cancer.