Cancer vaccine?: BBC News Review

Have scientists found a vaccine that can cure cancer?

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Sian.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary about this story.

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and try the quiz on our website.

Now, let's hear more about the story.

A cancer vaccine?

By 2030?

The husband-and-wife team who worked on the Covid jab

say the same technology could be used to treat cancer. These vaccines

tell the cells to produce a protein that can fight tumours.

The trials are in the early stages, but results have been encouraging, so far.

  You've been looking at the headlines, Sian. What's the vocabulary?

We have 'crack', 'hailed' and 'pioneers'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first headline.

OK, this one is from the BBC.

And, so, the headline is asking

whether the technology that was used to develop Covid vaccines

could also help in finding a vaccine or cure for cancer.

The company that's working on this

is BioNTech, but the word

we're looking at is 'crack'. Now,

I know this word 'crack'.

I can crack an egg or crack a plate. It means it breaks. What's the connection?

OK, so those examples are physical examples, literal examples,

of breaking something. But here,

'crack' means to solve a problem, to find a solution to a problem.

Ah. OK. So, it's this technology that could solve

or crack the problem of cancer.

Can we use 'crack' in any other way like this?

Yeah. So, we can talk about the police cracking a case.

So, this means they solve the case, they solve the crime, or a detective

like Sherlock, can crack a code. So, that means he finds a solution.

He works out what the code means.

OK. Well, I think we've cracked this explanation for our audience.

Let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This one's from the Evening Standard.

The headline is saying

that a vaccine for cancer is being hailed by leading Covid

scientists. Leading Covid

scientists are the scientists who developed the covid vaccine,

but we're looking at the word 'hailed'.

What can you tell us? Yes, so, 'hail'

here is a verb, and it means to praise or approve a person or an achievement,

and normally in a very public way.

Yes. So, the headline is saying there's a lot of praise

for this potential cancer vaccine.

It is hailed as a possible cure.

And it's the scientists themselves who are praising themselves.

Exactly. And this,

word 'hail' is usually used in a passive form in headlines, and

that's because the thing that is hailed is often more important

than the people who are praising.

Yeah. And, so, we can say that a film is hailed as a masterpiece, or

a company's profits are hailed as a sign of a success.

We hear this used a lot in news.

But, do we use 'hail' in our everyday English? Not really.

It's quite a dramatic word.

So, it's not really used in informal chat.

It's more in headlines, and it has more impact because of that.

Well, I'm going to hail that explanation as a great success.

Let's have a look at it one more time.

Time for our next headline.

OK, this one is from The Times.

The headline says we can expect a cancer vaccine

by 2030. The word

we're looking at is 'pioneers'. Now, Sian, when I imagine pioneers,

I can picture

men with big beards and rifles,

walking off into the wilderness to claim a new land.

What's the connection?  

Well, I'm not sure if the scientists have big beards, or look exactly like that,

but I imagine not. But you're right.

A pioneer was someone who explored

or settled in a new area, particularly the US,

but nowadays, 'pioneer' is often used to mean a person who is first to develop

or use something new.

OK. So, by Covid pioneers,

we mean the first people to develop a vaccine for Covid.

That's right. So, we can use 'pioneer' in relation

to a new method, a new technique, or an area of knowledge. For example,

Marie Curie was a pioneer in physics and chemistry because

she discovered radioactivity. And Steve Jobs was a technology pioneer.

Yes. And, so, the Covid vaccine pioneers are now hoping to become cancer vaccine pioneers.

Now, if I talk about my own life,

I do a small piece of work that I think is really important,

I have a new idea for a programme.

BBC Learning English. Am I a pioneer?

Well, you could Neil, but it sounds a bit grand.

You're saying that you're a very important person. In normal conversation,

it's more likely just to say that you develop something,

or you invented something new.

We've been looking at the word as a noun.

Yes. It's also a verb: 'to pioneer'.

So, you can pioneer something.

So, for example, BBC

Learning English is almost 80 years old, and 80 years ago,

we pioneered teaching English by radio.

But we weren't around then.

No, we weren't. Let's have a look at that again.

We've had 'crack':

Find a solution to something.

'Hailed': praised.

And; 'pioneered': The first people to develop or use something.

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and goodbye. Goodbye.