This Covid-19 Vaccine Could Unlock the Next Revolution in Cancer Treatment

Covid-19 mRNA based vaccines Saved 2.5 million lives worldwide It may help stimulate the immune system to fight cancer during the pandemic. This is the surprising conclusion of a new study. we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature.

While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team pediatric oncologist Elias SayourHe discovered that mRNA can train immune systems to kill tumors. Even if mRNA is not associated with cancer.

Based on this finding, we hypothesized that mRNA vaccines designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 may also have antitumor effects.

For this reason We looked at the clinical results. For more than 1,000 late-stage melanoma and lung cancer patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors. This treatment is a common approach doctors use to train the immune system to kill cancer. It does this by blocking a protein that tumor cells produce to turn off immune cells, allowing the immune system to continue killing the cancer.

Remarkably, patients who received the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were twice as likely to be alive after three years compared to those who did not receive either vaccine. Surprisingly, patients with tumors that typically do not respond well to immunotherapy also saw very strong benefits; There was a nearly fivefold improvement in three-year overall survival. This link between improved survival and receiving the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine remained strong even after we controlled for factors such as disease severity and co-occurring conditions.

To understand the underlying mechanism, We turned to animal models. We found that Covid-19 mRNA vaccines act like an alarm, triggering the body’s immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells and overcome the cancer’s ability to shut down immune cells. When combined, vaccines and immune checkpoint inhibitors coordinate to unleash the full power of the immune system to kill cancer cells.

Elias Sayour, a University of Florida Health pediatric oncologist who led the study, explains that mRNA vaccines that are not specific to a patient’s cancer “can wake up the sleeping giant that is the immune system to fight cancer.”

Why is it important?

Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors revolutionized cancer treatment Over the past decade, providing treatment for many patients previously thought to be incurable. However, these treatments are ineffective in patients. “cold” tumors This successfully evades immune detection.

Our findings suggest that mRNA vaccines may provide the spark the immune system needs to turn these “cold” tumors “hot.” If approved soon clinical trialOur hope is that this widely available, low-cost intervention can expand the benefits of immunotherapy to millions of patients who would not otherwise benefit from this treatment.

What other research is being done?

Unlike vaccines for infectious diseases, which are used to prevent infection, therapeutic cancer vaccines It is used to help train cancer patients’ immune systems to better fight tumors.

We and many others I’m working hard right now to do personalized mRNA vaccines for cancer patients. This involves taking a small sample of a patient’s tumor and using machine learning algorithms to predict which proteins in the tumor will work best. Best targets for vaccine. But this approach can be done like this: expensive and difficult to produce.

In contrast, Covid-19 mRNA vaccines do not need to be personalized, are already widely available worldwide at low or no cost, and can be administered at any time during the patient’s treatment. Our findings are Covid-19 mRNA vaccines have significant antitumor effects There is hope that they can help spread the anti-cancer benefits of mRNA vaccines to everyone.

what’s next

Towards this goal, we are preparing to test this treatment strategy in patients with a nationwide clinical trial in people with lung cancer. People taking immune checkpoint inhibitors will be randomly assigned to receive or receive the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine during treatment.

This study will tell us whether Covid-19 mRNA vaccines should be included as part of the standard of care for patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors. Ultimately, we hope that this approach will help many patients undergoing immunotherapy, especially those who do not currently have effective treatment options.

This study exemplifies how a tool born out of a global pandemic could provide a new weapon against cancer and rapidly bring the benefits of existing treatments to millions of patients. By using a familiar vaccine in a new way, we hope to extend the life-saving benefits of immunotherapy to cancer patients previously left behind.

Research Summary A brief look at interesting academic studies.

Adam GrippinPhysician Scientist in Cancer Immunotherapy, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center And Christiano MarconiPh.D. Immunotherapy Candidate, University of Florida

This article is republished from: Speech It is under Creative Commons license. Read original article.

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