Colon cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. On average, the lifetime risk of developing colon cancer is about one in 20.
Now in a scientific breakthrough, a Chicago-based teen may have found the cure for colon cancer that has the potential to eradicate the disease completely.
Passionate to find a cure, 19-year-old Kevin Stonewall started working on developing a vaccine while he was still in high school. He worked tirelessly in the Rush University lab where he was an intern conducting the experiment.
In tests, his experimental colon cancer vaccine proved 100 percent effective in young mice that were injected with colon cancer cells. The tumors of young mice were gone, and the young mice showed immunity to colon cancer. But the experiment was not very effective in the older mice that still had the cancer cells.
Stonewall’s experiment will help scientists develop a more effective vaccine that could work on the elderly, who are more susceptible to colon cancer.
