What is the power of messenger RNA vaccines for cancer treatment?

Medicine is experiencing an unprecedented and revolutionary moment in the prevention and treatment of various diseases, which lack a clear and effective answer for millions of patients every year.

Over the past three decades, scientists have made progress in the investigation Cancer vaccines for Healthy people at high risk To make them suffer, but they found themselves Different obstacles For their development.

Current modern medicine deepened the basic idea of ​​dealing with cancer and other diseases Malignant cell Start can be removed Immune system. That approach may not be the same as how vaccines protect against infectious diseases today. Currently, trials are underway for the same Vaccines for pancreatic cancer, colon and breast cancer.

Especially about Pancreatic cancerAn important innovation was announced yesterday, a disease with one of the lowest survival rates in the world, despite not being one of the most frequent diseases in terms of diagnosis.

To prevent this so-called “silent killer”, the disease from the beginning Difficult to identify, medicine has been able to develop An experimental personalized messenger RNA vaccine, It has achieved “promising” results against pancreatic cancer in Phase I clinical trials.

This is revealed in an article Published In the journal Nature and led by researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (USA), in which the first results A clinical trial with 16 volunteers showed that the vaccine induced a significant immune response and delays the recurrence of patients in the form of pancreatic cancer, especially pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, which is one of the tumors with the lowest survival rates.

He Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is fatal in 88% of patientsHowever, T cell neoantigens are proteins that can arise on the surface of tumors after certain types of DNA mutations and are suitable for vaccines.

The experts Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York (United States) was surprised Why 12% of sufferers are able to overcome this pathology. The cause is focused T lymphocytes, It showed 12 times more immunogenicity than that exceptional 88%, as is the case with other tumors.

In combination with chemotherapy and immunotherapy, researchers have discovered A personalized mRNA vaccine tailored to each patient’s tumor characteristics elicited substantial T-cell responses in 50% of them.

“Significant T cell immune responses were observed in 50% of volunteersindicating that the vaccine may induce an improved immune response,” the researchers noted. But in addition, they were able to identify an increase in the number of “killer lymphocytes” in the patients’ bodies, which may result in the absence of relapses.

“Pancreatic cancer is deadly with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10%; That hasn’t changed in decades. It is responsible for about 50,000 deaths in the United States each year, ranking third after lung and colon cancer. “Patients with pancreatic cancer present with high-grade intraepithelial neoplasias (PanIN) or invasive adenocarcinoma and characteristic genetic alterations usually present late,” said the eminent scientist. Eric TopolDirector of the Institute for Translational Research in California, USA.

“A Correction Inside The Lancet He emphasized that new strategies to screen high-risk patients to detect pancreatic tumors at earlier stages to achieve a clinically significant impact are essential,” added the expert, who did not hesitate to highlight the news about the new vaccine. “Dual power against pancreatic cancer”.

mRNA vaccines put an end to Covid-19, a technology that, however, was initially attempted to develop cancer vaccines. About A rich field of research Thanks to the great knowledge about the immune system and technological advancements.

Another of the most recognized voices at the scientific level in his advances with messenger RNA is Dr. Katalin Carigo, Biochemist and Associate Professor, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA. Awarded By L’Oreal – UNESCO Women in Science -2022 edition- section Prize winners For innovative development of anti-inflammatory messenger RNA as a potent vaccine against covid and various types of cancer.

infobae Interviewed Carrico in Paris, where he received the award. There, the senior vice president of BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals said: “I want to focus on making RNA that codes for therapeutic proteins that can help heal wounds, heal bones, and cure cancer patients.” “A new chapter in medicine is that the patient can make the protein himself. They are molecules that instruct cells to produce therapeutic proteins on their own against various diseases. That is the most important thing It can be a cheap treatment because it is cheapWithout too many side effects”, said Karikó.

The new trial announced yesterday is a revolutionary step in vaccine medicine. The trials, after its use, followed patients with expanded T cells for 18 months, obtaining a longer median free survival (13.4 months) compared to patients without expanded T cells with the vaccine.

For experts, These results demonstrate the potential of isolated messenger RNA vaccines in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, In addition to providing evidence of its general efficacy as a therapeutic tool in the treatment of disease.

The authors of the scientific study, though the sample size was small, these first results point to that. Further studies are needed This type of product. Manel Juan, head of the immunology service at the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, “The study is very well designed and its scientific quality is unquestionable”.

“This proves something that has been proposed many times (with less robust data) that a personalized vaccine by mRNA of tumor antigens is effective in inducing a response and can at least increase survival time,” said this researcher who was not involved in the work.

These results demonstrate the potential of individual mRNA vaccines in the treatment of this tumor, and provide evidence of their overall efficacy as a therapeutic tool in the treatment of the disease. Despite the limited sample size, the authors note that these preliminary results call for larger studies of this type of pancreatic cancer vaccine.

This trial led to another phase 2 trial, already underway Several Spanish centers participateAmong them is Ignacio Melero, professor of immunology at the University of Navarra, researcher at CIMA and co-director of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy. Navarra University Clinic.

Personalized mRNA vaccines combined with immunomodulation are clear candidates for dominance in oncology therapyEspecially used for surgery with curative intent”, Melrow concluded.

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