Branson unveiled new Virgin Galactic spaceships craft

Details

Written by northsouth

Category: Innovations

Published: 31 March 2021

Hits: 1577

LONDON - The British billionaire businessman Sir Richard Branson has hailed Virgin Galactic’s “growing fleet of spaceships” after unveiling its third craft.

VSS Imagine, finished with an entirely mirror-like material, is part of the company’s third generation of spaceships – which the group says will “lay the foundation for the design and manufacture of future vehicles”.

The craft is designed to reflect the surrounding environment, allowing it to change colour and appearance as it travels from Earth to space.

Virgin Galactic said the third generation of spaceships was “built to enable improved performance in terms of maintenance access and flight rate”.

The company also said VSS Imagine demonstrates progress towards efficient design and production as it works to “scale the business for the long-term”.

As the new ship is ground-tested, Virgin Galactic will progress the manufacturing of another third generation vehicle, VSS Inspire.

Speaking about the unveiling of the new spaceship, Sir Richard said: “Virgin Galactic spaceships are built specifically to deliver a new, transforming perspective to the thousands of people who will soon be able to experience the wonder of space for themselves.

“As a SpaceShip III class of vehicle, Imagine is not just beautiful to look at, but represents Virgin Galactic’s growing fleet of spaceships.

“All great achievements, creations and changes start with an idea.

“Our hope is for all those who travel to space to return with fresh perspectives and new ideas that will bring positive change to our planet.”

The company said it is targeting 400 flights per year, per spaceport, as part of a multi-year effort.

Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said: “Today we unveiled our SpaceShip III class of vehicles, marking the beginning of the Virgin Galactic fleet.

“VSS Imagine and Inspire are stunning ships that will take our future astronauts on an incredible voyage to space, and their names reflect the aspirational nature of human spaceflight.

“Congratulations to our dedicated team who worked so brilliantly to achieve this milestone.”

World’s first vaccine for ovarian cancer ‘could wipe out the disease’

Details

Written by Super User

Category: Science

Published: 04 October 2024

Hits: 623

BY JANE KIRBY

LONDON - The world’s first vaccine for ovarian cancer – being developed in the UK – could wipe out the deadly disease, researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Oxford are creating OvarianVax, a vaccine which teaches the immune system to recognise and attack the earliest stages of ovarian cancer.

The hope is that the jab could be given to women preventatively on the NHS with the aim of eliminating the disease.

Experts suggest it could work in a similar way to the human papillomavirus (HPV) jab, which is on track to stamp out cervical cancer.

For the new work, Professor Ahmed Ahmed, director of the ovarian cancer cell laboratory at MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine the University of Oxford, and his team are identifying cellular targets for the vaccine.

They will establish which proteins on the surface of early-stage ovarian cancer cells are most strongly recognised by the immune system, and how effectively the vaccine kills mini-models of ovarian cancer in the lab.

They will then move on to human clinical trials in people with BRCA gene mutations – which massively increase the risk of ovarian cancer – and healthy women in the general population to see if the disease could be prevented.

Cancer Research UK is funding the study with up to £600,000 over the next three years.

Prof Ahmed told the PA news agency that, if the jab is successful, he would expect to start seeing an impact within the next five years.

Asked if ovarian cancer could be wiped out with the new vaccine, he said: “Absolutely – that would be the aim. We still have a long way to go but it is a really exciting time. I’m very optimistic myself.”

For the work, scientists will create the vaccine in the lab, with the aim of training the immune system to recognise more than 100 proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer, known as tumour-associated antigens.

They will then move to testing the vaccine in patients with the disease.

Prof Ahmed said: “The idea is, if you give the vaccine, these tiny tumours will hopefully either reduce, shrink really significantly, or disappear. That would give us the sign that the vaccine is working.”

The next stage would then be to include women with BRCA mutations and a wider general population of women without known disease to see whether “the vaccine would be suitable for all” in preventing ovarian cancer.

Prof Ahmed said: “Let’s imagine that it all goes well, and the vaccine really works well.

“Now, the obvious population who would benefit from this are the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, because they have a very high chance of getting ovarian cancer.

“If you give it to those patients and it’s effective, then you get the best health economics and the best cost-effectiveness.

“The question then becomes – would it really benefit the general population? … Could you offer it to everyone?”

At the moment, there is no screening test for ovarian cancer, which is often diagnosed in late stages because the symptoms – such as bloating and no appetite – can be vague.

However, it is known that women with BRCA mutations, such as actress Angelina Jolie, are at high risk.

Almost 45% of people with an altered BRCA1 gene and almost 20% with an altered BRCA2 gene will develop ovarian cancer by the age of 80, compared with just 2% in the general population.

Currently, women with BRCA1/2 alterations are recommended to have their ovaries removed by the age of 35, which means they go through early menopause and cannot have children in the future.

Prof Ahmed said BRCA mutation carriers could benefit greatly from the new vaccine because “they wouldn’t then have to have their ovaries removed”.

However, he said his team will be trying to get the best components included in the vaccine so it “would be effective for as many people as possible”, including the wider population.

He added: “I am optimistic because we are talking about preventing the very first few cancer cells that develop – and not trying to cure or treat or prevent the tumour coming back.

“I’m hoping that, because the number of cells that we will be targeting is quite small, we will have success.

“We’ve seen success with the HPV vaccine – it’s really, really incredibly effective.”

Prof Ahmed told PA that “while the full blown timeline” for a vaccine being approved “might be many years away”, the “impact that it would have, if it’s successful, would hopefully be much sooner”.

He said that, through the clinical trials, he would hope to start seeing the impact of the vaccine “in four or five years on the healthy population”.

There are around 7,500 new ovarian cancer cases every year in the UK, with BRCA mutations accounting for around 5%-15% of these cases.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “Projects like OvarianVax are a really important step forward into an exciting future, where cancer is much more preventable.

“This funding will power crucial discoveries in the lab which will realise our ambitions to improve ovarian cancer survival.

“OvarianVax builds on the exciting developments in vaccine technology during the pandemic.

“This is one of many projects which we hope will give women longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.”

Alzheimer’s wonder drug

Details

Written by Super User

Category: Science

Published: 22 August 2024

Hits: 611

LONDON - The first ever drug found to slow Alzheimer’s disease will not be funded by the NHS, the health service’s drugs watchdog has said.

On Thursday morning safety regulators gave the drug lecanemab the green light, meaning that patients in the early stages of the disease will be eligible to purchase the medication.

The drug has been hailed as “the beginning of the end” after trials found it slowed cognitive decline by 27 per cent in sufferers.

But in draft guidance the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said the benefits of lecanemab were too small to justify its costs.

Lecanemab was approved for use in the United States last year at a cost of $26,500 – meaning a cost of around £20,000 a year.

It is estimated around 70,000 adults in England would have been eligible for treatment with lecanemab.

Treatment only available privately

The decision is set to prompt fierce rows, and means the treatment will only be available for those who purchase the drugs privately.

David Thomas, head of policy, at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said he believed the costs to obtain the drug privately would be “cost prohibitive for all but the most wealthy of individuals” because the price would include infusion and monitoring, on top of drug costs.

Charities criticised the failure of Nice to take into account the costs of the drugs to society, in reducing the burden on carers.

Nice said its independent committee found that lecanemab was the first medicine to be licensed in the UK that has been shown to slow down progression of the disease, by between four and six months.