Britain has taken a step forward in the fight against cancer after inventing a skin cancer (melanoma) vaccine that is personalized. The mRNA will also have the potential to stop other types of cancer – lung, bladder and kidney.
The “game-changing” injection, which offers hope for a cure, is prepared individually for each patient in just a few weeks. It works by making the body go after cancer cells and prevent the deadly disease from returning.
The personalized vaccine is being developed with the participation of the pharmaceutical companies “Moderna” (Moderna), and MSD found that it dramatically reduces the risk of the cancer returning in melanoma patients. The final third phase of the study is underway – it includes a number of British hospitals, in partnership with University College London.
Dr. Heather Shaw, the trial’s national coordinating investigator, said the injection has the potential to treat people with melanoma and is being tested in other cancers. “It’s one of the most exciting things we’ve seen in a long time.”
Dr Shaw also spoke of a “really precise and individually tuned instrument” and compared the opportunity given to patients to eating at a fine restaurant instead of a fast food joint. The new injection is an individualized neoantigen therapy (INT) and is sometimes called a cancer vaccine.
The vaccine is designed to trigger the immune system so that it can fight against the patient’s specific type of cancer and tumor. The injection carries the coding for up to 34 neoantigens and activates an anti-tumor immune response based on the unique mutations in the patient’s cancer.
To create the injection, a sample of the tumor is removed during the patient’s surgery, then the DNA is sequenced and artificial intelligence is used.
Dr. Shaw adds that it is an individualized therapy and in some ways is much smarter than a vaccine. The ultimate goal is to cure patients of cancer. “Absolutely, that’s the goal. With this therapy, you’re dealing with the theoretical risk that the cancer could come back,” she continues.
“What we’re trying to do, on a patient-by-patient basis, is to deliver a treatment to kill all those rogue cells that may have escaped and are lying around. Our desire is to get more people into the patient pool with relapse-free survival. This should translate to overall survival and disease-free survival in these patients over time, which equates to a cure,” Dr. Shaw added.
Professor Laurence Young of the University of Warwick described the achievement as one of the most exciting in modern cancer therapy.
“The combination of a personalized cancer vaccine to stimulate a specific immune response to the patient’s tumor, along with the use of an antibody to release the brakes on the body’s immune response, is already showing great promise in patients whose original skin cancer has been removed.”
In recent years, interest in making a cancer vaccine has intensified, thanks to a deeper understanding of how the body controls immune responses and the advent of mRNA vaccines, making it possible to develop a vaccine based on the immune profile of one’s own tumor. to the patient, much easier.
