Glioblastoma is the most common type of brain cancer, which affects about 3 in 100,000 people globally each year. Recent research shows that glioblastoma incidence is rising due to an ageing population and environmental factors such as air pollution. Glioblastoma is extremely challenging to treat with a very low survival rate due to which researchers have developed a new mRNA cancer vaccine to retrain the body’s immune system and potentially treat glioblastoma.
Researchers say that the human brain tumour program has developed promising effects with other forms of immunotherapy against brain cancer and they wanted to test a novel mRNA vaccine design to enhance responses for these difficult-to-treat diseases.
Ever since the mRNA vaccines were developed to fight the coronavirus, scientists have been studying their use for the treatment of other conditions, including cancer. In this study, researchers used study participants’ tumour cells to create a personalized vaccine for their particular cancer. mRNA is the information from the genetic code that is turned into protein: the hardware that makes each cancer unique.By targeting the unique mRNA repertoire of a patient’s cancer, researchers can make exquisitely personalized vaccines unique to individual tumours in a manner that is feasible and commercializable to all.
The study evaluated the impact of the new mRNA vaccines by testing 10 pet dogs who had natural brain tumours and were enrolled in the study by their owners because they had no other treatment options. Dogs treated with the mRNA cancer vaccine lived an average of 139 days, compared to the average 30- to 60-day survival rate for dogs with the condition.
After animal tests, the scientists expanded their research to a small FDA-approved clinical trial of four human study participants with glioblastoma. After receiving the mRNA vaccine, researchers reported that in less than 48 hours, they were able to observe brain tumours moving from a “cold” silenced immune response to a “hot” active immune response. This is significant because it usually takes weeks to months with boosters for vaccines to begin working and researchers expect this work to create a new paradigm that rapidly activates the immune system against cancer.
Researchers also say that this is too early of a stage to assess the clinical effects of mRNA cancer vaccine even though they did report that human participants who received the vaccine lived disease free longer. The researchers also stated the small clinical trial of four participants helped demonstrate early safety and feasibility before expanding to a larger clinical trial.
Journal Reference- Author links open overlay panelHector R. Mendez-Gomez 1 19, 1, 19, 2, 3, 4, … Foster, E. S. (2024). RNA aggregates harness the danger response for potent cancer immunotherapy.
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