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By Lisa Adams

SCIENTISTS say a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer could be available within a year.

That could mean an end to the disease which is the second biggest killer of young women today.

Already trial results with the drug Gardasil have proved 100 per cent effective at preventing the early changes that signal cervical cancer. Gardasil is designed to protect against two strains of a virus called the human papilloma virus, or HPV, thattriggers 70 per cent of cervical cancers.

If all schoolgirls in the future are vaccinated, the disease which kills more than 1000 women across the UK every year, could bewiped out. Dr Anne Szarewski, clinical consultant at Cancer Research UK, said: "These results add to the mounting evidencethat cervical cancer vaccines offer promise for the future."

But what other medical discoveries are giving hope to thousands of patients today?We take a look at the most remarkable breakthroughs.

BREAST CANCER THE drug Herceptin has been hailed as one of the medical breakthroughs of our generation.

It works by combating HER-2 positive breast cancer, an aggressive type which often targets younger women. Recent trials have proved it can actually prevent the cancer from returning if it is given within six months of initial treatment
HEART DISEASE GLASGOW is notorious as the heart disease capital of the world, with the highest rates of the disease in Britain.

But thousands of lives could be saved thanks to the discovery of new statin drugs.

They lower cholesterol levels and a recent study funded by the British Heart Foundation showed that around a third of all heart attacks and strokes could be avoided if people at risk were prescribed these drugs.

They could save around 15,000 lives a year in this country.

BRAIN DISORDERS ALZHEIMER' S and Parkinson's disease could be cured using stem cells. Studies have successfully repaired brain damage in monkeys by using injections of embryonic cells. The cells trigger the brain chemical dopamine which helps mend previously irreversible damage caused by the brain disease.

Scientists in Newcastle are working on cloning a human embryo which could provide the stem cells needed to carry out the vital research.

CYSTIC FIBROSIS and DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY These devastating diseases which kill sufferers in their twenties or earlier could eventually disappear thanks to embryo selection.

The technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is carried out on couples during fertility treatment.

Cystic Fibrosis and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy are caused by a genetic defect, so if scientists screen embryos for the defect, then they can eliminate it by only choosing embryos which are free of the disease. They are then implanted into the mother'swomb.

Scientists are also working on the possibility of extending embryo selection to help families with a strong link to inherited cancers.

The process could be used to stop a girl being born with a faulty gene that might lead to breast cancer in later life. Supporters of the technique say it creates babies 'designed to live rather than die'.

DIABETES BUSINESSMAN Richard Lane has already been cured of diabetes thanks to ground-breaking transplant surgery. The 61-year- old from Kent had relied on insulin injections to control his condition since 1976.

But he could finally throw away his needles for good after being given injections of insulinproducing pancreatic 'islet' cells from dead donors by doctors at King's College Hospital, London. They were injected into his liver under local anaesthetic using keyhole surgery.

The transplant has replaced the cells in his own pancreas which were no longer efficiently producing insulin.

multiple sclerosis
A cure for multiple sclerosis maybe closer after scientists successfully treated a British woman with the crippling disease. The team in the Netherlands take babies' umbilical cord cells and inject them in to sufferers' spines to help them walk again. Jan Wilks, 45, from Liverpool, who had the pounds 13,000 operation earlier this year no longer uses her wheelchair.
She said: "The best moment was when my little boy burst into tears and said, 'Mummy, you can walk'.'

BLINDNESS BLIND people are being helped to see again by cornea transplants.

Stem cells from the cornea - the transparent disc at the front of the eye - are grown in a lab and are then transplanted on to the eyes of blind patients. Cells can come from donors or the patient.

DOWN'S SYNDROME THE lives of people with Down's syndrome look set to get a huge boost thanks to medical advances.

A mouse with the equivalent of this genetic disorder has been created which gives scientists the best weapon yet to help them understand the condition.

People with this chomosomal disorder are more at risk from heart defects, leukaemia and Alzheimer's disease

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