Cancer Research UK via Henry Scowcroft/YouTube and Science Alert
Scientists just took a big, “very positive” step towards developing what could be the first ‘universal cancer vaccine’.
The results from early trials in humans, along with research in mice, have just been published, and they suggest that the new technique could be used to activate patients’ immune systems against any type of tumour, no matter where it is in the body.
Unlike the vaccines we’re familiar with, this potential vaccine would be given to patients who already have cancer, rather than those at risk of getting it. It basically works by shooting tiny ‘darts’ containing pieces of RNA extracted from the patient’s cancer cells at the body’s own immune system, convincing them to launch an all-out attack on any tumours they come across.
By just changing the RNA inside those darts, the team can, in theory, mobilise the immune system against any kind of cancer. “[Such] vaccines are fast and inexpensive to produce, and virtually any tumour antigen can be encoded by RNA,” the team, led by researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany, reports in Nature.
“Thus, the nanoparticulate RNA immunotherapy approach introduced here may be regarded as a universally applicable novel vaccine class for cancer immunotherapy.”
Immunotherapy, which involves using the patient’s own immune system to attack cancer, isn’t in itself new – researchers are already using it against different cancer types with great results.
But until now, researchers have mostly done this by genetically engineering special, cancer-targeting immune cells in the lab, and then injecting them back into a patient – which is a time-consuming and expensive process.
The difference with this technique is that the vaccine is made in the lab, and it introduces the cancer DNA into the immune cells within the body, which is a lot less invasive. It also means that the vaccine can be tweaked to hunt a range of cancer types.
Learn more: Scientists have performed the first trials of a ‘universal cancer vaccine’
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The Latest on: Universal cancer vaccine
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One Comment
Vadim Shapoval
Have we seen the beginning of a universal cancer vaccine? Scientists conclude that the nanoparticle vaccine may potentially qualify as a universal vaccine for cancer immunotherapy. Scientists say they have made progress, but more breakthroughs are needed. The Father of Oncology concludes that scientists love money; cancers love iron. Genes involved in iron metabolism include different cancer genes (iron-overloaded genes) and anti-cancer genes (iron-deficiency genes). Unfortunately, our own immune system cannot recognize cancerous (iron-overloaded, iron-rich, iron-saturated) cells. The Father of Oncology says primary tumors always develop at body sites of excessive iron deposits; such deposits can be inherited or acquired. Cancerous tumors are made up of iron-overloaded cells growing in an anarchic fashion. Cancers occur when cellular iron overload chaotically affects cellular molecules and organelles (RNA, DNA, chromosomes, mitochondria, lysosomes, etc). Cancer is a disease of iron-overloaded (iron-saturated, iron-rich) cells. Millions of cancer patients are needlessly dying every year because scientific iron/cancer information is largely ignored. Direct intratumoral injections of iron-deficiency substances (ceramic needles) are needed when tumors/metastases cannot be removed with surgery (ceramic blades). Personalized iron-deficiency methods (special diets, blood donations) can neutralize micro-metastases in hospitalized patients.