Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers, with a 13% survival rate at five years. But the ability of scientists to custom-design therapeutic vaccines using mRNA technology may change that. A trial from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center enrolled 16 patients with pancreatic cancer. After surgery, material from their individual tumors was studied to design an mRNA vaccine specifically for them, which could teach their bodies to recognize the exact cancerous cells that made up the tumor, wherever they occurred in the body. The vaccines were used alongside standard treatments of immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Of those 16 patients, half showed responses to the vaccines by producing more of certain kinds of T-cells.
Six years later, only two of the eight patients whose bodies did not respond to the vaccines are still alive. But seven of the eight who produced more T-cells have survived! This is a remarkable finding, since cancer cells are the body's own cells, and finding the slight difference between what the immune system should attack and what it should not is a major undertaking. Even more fine-tuning of the customized vaccines may raise the success rate. As it is, those involved want to expand trials to more patients. Read more about this research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. -via kottke
(Image credit: Miguel Tremblay)
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