Big changes in medical technology are on the way, and they may happen sooner than you’d believe. Finding effective treatments for cancers of all types has been a difficult task. Over decades of cancer research, humanity has taken large strides towards accurately diagnosing, effectively treating, and completely eliminating cancer in those afflicted by the awful disease.
Now, researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have completed a trial of cancer vaccines in those with pancreatic cancer. It is very technical, so feel free to google any uncertain words, but I’ll do my best to quickly summarize the main points.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a deadly form of pancreatic cancer with low survival rates. Immunotherapies have not been effective against PDAC, as immunotherapies generally target specific proteins in order to eliminate cancer cells, but PDAC makes this difficult.
Dr. Vinod Balachandran, leader of the team at MSKCC, conducted a small clinical trial using personalized mRNA cancer vaccines for PDAC patients. These vaccines used mRNA technology originally developed years ago, and more recently employed in the use of the COVID-19 vaccine, in order to target something called neoantigens. One of the reasons cancer cells are problematic is that they produce incomplete proteins, and do not perform the regular functions of the cells they originate from; neoantigens are these incomplete proteins.
Unfortunately, our bodies do not recognize neoantigens on their own, not generally. The mRNA vaccine changes that, encouraging cells called T cells to target neoantigens, and kill these cells. Among the patients who received the vaccine, half of them exhibited a strong immune response with activated T cells that recognized the specific neoantigens targeted by the vaccine. These patients had longer disease-free periods, and in one case, the vaccine-activated T cells appeared to eliminate a small tumor that had spread to the liver.
One of the strengths of these vaccines versus other treatments is that they are personalized; the vaccines will target the specific neoantigen of each patient that receives the vaccination. This is achieved through mRNA technology that is used to identify neoantigens and encourage T-cell responses to specific neoantigens.
So, while the research team doesn’t believe that this technology will be widely available until 2030, this is encouraging news for humanity as a whole, and a huge step forward in eliminating cancer.
For more reading, please go to these great sources:
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Cancer Institute.
