For the first time, scientists tested a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine in a patient with a deadly form of brain cancer – and it triggered a strong immune response.
The vaccine, described in a study published on May 1 in the journal Cell, was created by extracting genetic material called RNA from a tumor from a patient with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer. The RNA was then replicated to make a vaccine from the mRNA, which is a model of what’s inside each cell, including tumor cells.
“These results represent an exciting advance in next-generation cancer therapies that harness mRNA, the same class of drugs used in COVID-19 vaccines,” Owen Fentonassistant professor of pharmacoengineering and molecular pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.
Moving at the speed of cancer
People developed cancer vaccinesor treatments that enhance the body’s immune system’s attack against cancer cells, since the 1800s. However, cancer vaccines rarely trigger an immune response strong enough to defeat the cancer.
Cancers mutate quickly, so if doctors cut out a tumor and take a biopsy, the tumor itself may look different within 24 hours, the study’s lead author said. Dr Elias Sayourpediatric oncologist and associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Florida.
And by the time immune therapy begins, “the cancer is now out of control and the immune response is now like a water gun to a forest fire,” Sayour told Live Science.
Until now, the cancer vaccines tested have aimed to mount an immune response to a small number of molecular signatures from tumors from many different patients. In clinical trials, vaccine material is often packaged into tiny lipid nanoparticles, but the trials typically deliver only a small number of particles and the vaccines themselves take months or even years to develop. However, cancer cells can adapt very quickly and find ways to disable or block recognition by the local immune system.
By isolating all mRNA signatures in a patient’s tumor, designing a larger lipid nanoparticle, and delivering more mRNA particles at once, Sayour and his team demonstrated an aggressive tumor-specific immune response of the patient. And because mRNA can be isolated, amplified and packaged for delivery within days, these tailor-made vaccines can be generated in about a month.
Sayour and other researchers hypothesize that the larger payload makes the nanoparticle more dangerous to the body’s immune system, causing a greater response.
And using vaccine technology developed against the COVID-19 virus, Sayour and his team were able to quickly create a vaccine specific to a patient’s tumor and train the patient’s immune system to specifically attack the tumor before it changes. .
“The beauty of RNA, which I think has been proven in (COVID-19) vaccines, is that you can update them quickly and deal with the spread of the pandemic. What if We could do the same thing against cancer? said Sayour.
This new therapy could likely be adapted to trigger an immune response against other tumors in conjunction with existing therapies.
However, the study is still in its early stages. As with all immunotherapies, there is a risk of an uncontrolled immune response.
Sayour and his team will soon treat more people in an expanded clinical trial to determine a treatment dose that can minimize the harmful effects of a strong immune response and to see if the targeted mRNA vaccine works in others. other patients.
News Source : www.livescience.com
Gn Health