Researchers and doctors have released a new experimental vaccine for breast cancer tumors, but they have also discovered another vaccine that they hope it will be much more effective since it can deliver a cancer-fighting gene into cells.

The gene produces immune system proteins but also tumor-destroying cells. Wei-Zen Wei, the doctor from Wayne State University in Detroit, who led the study stated that this is “a very significant advance because we have put the gene into the cells in the body. The vaccine is produced by your own cells. It is made right in your body."

At first, the vaccine was tested on mice and it was able to destroy tumors found in the little animals. The tumors were from a type of cancer called HER2 positive cancer. This HER2-positive cancer stands for 30% of breast cancers. Wei added that the vaccine worked also for eliminating HER2 tumors that weren’t eliminated with drugs designed to fight them.

Tumors like breast, colorectal and ovarian cancer have the HER2 protein over-active. The Genentech Inc drugs company released another drug called Herceptin, which was designed to treat these kinds of tumors. But it couldn’t eliminate the tumor permanently.

The team led by Wei made the new vaccine by using naked DNA from those genes which produce the HER2 receptor (the molecular signal for the breast cancer tumors) and they have put this DNA into a ring of genetic material from a bacterium.

Through the process of electroporation, they released this vaccine into the body to force the compound through skin and muscle to immunize mice. Then, "the immune system goes around the body to look for cancer cells," Wei said.

According to the American Cancer Society, 465,000 women die annually after being diagnosed with breast cancer.