The enemy: A melanoma skin cancer

A team of researchers from Birmingham University are hoping to harness the power of the body's own immune system to destroy melanoma cancer cells.

They take immune cells from the patient's blood, "train" them to attack the cancer cells, then return them.

Initial trials will involve only a handful of patients with melanoma which has spread beyond the skin.

More than 1,500 people in the UK die each year as a result of melanoma, which is the hardest type of skin cancer to treat.

Many research projects are focused on the potential of immune-boosting vaccines to improve the body's own ability to tackle various types of cancer.

Cell general

The Birmingham team from the Cancer Research Research UK Institute at the university, led by Professor Lawrence Young, used a type of immune cell called a dendritic cell to create their vaccine.

This cell is thought to play a role in co-ordinating immune responses to "foreign" invaders such as bacteria and viruses.

It gathers fragments of genetic information from the intruder, then pass them on to other immune cells which can then identify which cells to attack.

In this case, once dendritic cells have been extracted from the blood of the melanoma patient, genetic material from the melanoma cells themselves is added, and the dendritic cells put back into the patient.

In theory, this should prompt a large-scale immune response against the tumour cells.

Two months

Studies in animals with melanoma-like cancer, and on human cells in the laboratory have already shown promising results.

Professor Young told BBC News Online: "These dendritic cells are a little like the generals of the immune system, telling other immune cells what to do.

"We take them out of the body, educate them about melanoma, then put them back.

"This approach has already been tried in liver cancer, but in more seriously-ill patients.

"We plan to start clinical trials in two months."

The initial plan, he said, was to recruit 10 patients with melanoma which had spread beyond the skin, and look for signs that the course of treatment had activated immune system to attack the cancer.

He said that this approach to creating a cancer vaccine could potentially be employed in other cancers, such as prostate, lymphoma and kidney cancer.

A spokesman for Cancer Research UK - which funds Professor Young's research, described it as "very exciting".