I don’t know one person that hasn't been affected by cancer in one way or another. Today, I woke up to the news I’ve been praying for since the day my own mother was diagnosed.  It was announced that there will be a cancer vaccine, and it could cure cancer.

In an interview with BBC News, the husband and wife team behind Pfizer/BioNTech revealed that before the year 2030, cancer vaccines should be widely available.  Can you imagine, a cancer vaccine?!?  Before that eight-year time, it will likely be released to patients in need.  If you do anything at all, root for Professor Ozlem Tureci and Mr. Ugur Sahin with more passion than you do your favorite football team.  They are our real V.I.Ps. 

By now, we're no strangers to the world of vaccines, but how will it work?  Professor Ozlem Tureci, co-founder of Pfizer/BioNTech explains,

“When you use mRNA as a vaccine, the mRNA is a blueprint for the ‘wanted poster’ of the enemy--in this case, cancer antigens which distinguish cancer cells from normal cells.”

Scientists have been tirelessly working on a cure for cancer for decades and decades and now we have learned how to teach the immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells or stop them from forming in the first place.

Professor Tureci sums it up by saying,

"We feel that a cure for cancer or to changing cancer patients' lives is in our grasp"

For everyone who is destined for a diagnosis, this is hope pure and simple.  I thank God for people smarter than me, and for those who dedicate their lives to helping humankind.

May I make a societal suggestion?  This husband and wife team, Miss Ozlem Tureci and Mr. Ugur Sahin are the ones we should idolize.  We should beg them for selfies and yearn for their autographs.  We should see people in tears chanting their names as we do for Harry Styles (no offense Harry).  I want kids wearing their names on Jerseys.  Just for what they've done already, they need to be revered.  Keep going and THANK YOU.

Oh, how I wish they invented this upcoming vaccine 27 years ago when cancer took my mom.  This is us in happier times at the Jersey Shore house, our happy place.  

Shannon Holly
Photo credit:  Shannon Holly
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An FDA-approved cancer vaccine is the stuff dreams are made of, literally, Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, you are my heroes.  Read more about this from ABC News here.   

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