The method is best described as introducing a Trojan Horse into the body, to provoke the immune system to wage an all-out war on cancer cells. This makes it vital to give the immune system the ability to recognise and target cancer cells.
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RNA is a molecular cousin of DNA and transfers genetic code instructions to protein-making machinery in cells. However, they can have unwanted side effects.
Where did the story come from?
And this is what early research by the German team has demonstrated in mice. The Guardian and the Daily Mail did a good job of explaining the science.
The researchers are now awaiting long-term follow-up results from the initial study group to ensure safety, before expanding trials to a larger clinical group.
This combination of animal studies and very small-scale studies in humans is typical of the early stages of drug or vaccine development.
They begin with a snippet of the targeted cancer’s genetic RNA code, which they encase in a fatty membrane.
Immunotherapy seeks to activate the body’s own immune response without killing healthy cells.
Adjusting the nanoparticles’ electrical charge triggers a response from the dendritic cells to fight the cancer similar to how it battles viruses.
The following experiments used RNA from mouse cancers in the nanoparticles. These tumours remained “clinically stable” after they were given the vaccine, the paper said. The body’s immune system then reacts by creating killer T-cells which can destroy cancerous cells.
It is then injected into fat cells and placed into the bloodstream.
Mice vaccinated after being given cancer cleared the tumours within 20 days of vaccination, while untreated mice continued to grow tumours. This kickstarts an immune response and the production of a throng of T cells ready to take up the fight. Since the introduction of the first HPV vaccines, prevalence of HPV infection has dropped 64 percent among girls ages 14 to 19, helping to protect against cervical cancer.
Promising preliminary results from a human phase I trial of the vaccine have also been observed. The second patient, who had the tumour removed through surgery, was cancer-free seven months after being injected.
The third patient had eight tumours that had spread from the initial skin cancer into their lungs.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
“[Such] vaccines are fast and cheap to produce, and virtually any tumor antigen [a protein attacked by the immune system] can be encoded by RNA”, the scientists, headed by Professor Ugur Sahin, wrote as cited by the Independent.
Their approach “may be regarded as a universally applicable novel vaccine class for cancer immunotherapy”, they say.
New research on immunotherapy has potential to unlock the cure-all for cancer.
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The key point is that we need to wait for the results of those studies.
