As US and Cuba normalize relations, all sorts of good things will happen. Trade will flourish, businesses will open, tourism will boom and cultural exchange will thaw residual hostility.

These are the most macro, obvious benefits.

But Cuba and the US have had little societal interaction over the past several decades, so as the relationship renews, many unexpected things will be shared.

The US, for instance, will benefit from Cuba’s exceptional medical community.

Cuba has high rates of poverty and a general lack of resources, but the country’s universal education and healthcare systems have fostered bright and cutting-edge doctors and researchers.

Several years ago, Cuban researchers developed a vaccine for lung cancer called ClimaVax.

Around 221,000 US citizens get lung cancer each year. Climavax could help save many of the more than 158,000 US people who die from the disease each year.

The vaccine is intended for people at risk of lung cancer or those in remission, and can even be used to fight an active disease. It works by helping a person develop antibodies to stop and reverse the growth of cancer. More specifically, it keeps tumors from growing.

Cuba has several other cancer vaccines that will make their way to the US, such as breast, colorectal, head-and-neck, prostate and ovarian cancers.

But before any patients receive treatment, the FDA requires clinical trials to ensure the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.

So, while it could be years before patients regularly receive treatment, the thawing relationship is at least finally setting this process in motion.  

A vaccine for cancer may seem a little fanciful. For the longest time, cancer has been regarded as this inscrutable foe, something to be grappled with but never confidently conquered, because every person has a unique form of it.  

But the global medical community is entering a new era of cancer treatment, one equipped with gene-editing and immunotherapy capabilities. Even US President Obama has pledged the United States will find a cure in the years to come.

In the next few decades, perhaps, cancer may even be regarded as a mundane affliction, with each person receiving their own customized treatment.

Gene-editing will allow doctors to fully map out a person’s cancer and devise a specific solution. Immunotherapy, on the other hand, allows doctors to train a patient’s immune system to defeat cancer.

Immunotherapy has already had great success.

ClimaVax is a great example of what happens when countries collaborate on global health. If health solutions are shared across borders, regardless of other tensions, millions of people can be saved.