Cancer: what personalized vaccines would look like

The pandemic has not ended, but the success of the vaccines Ade messenger RNA (MRNA) has sparked interest in harnessing the technology to fight cancer. After all, a good thing can leave us with the coronavirus.

The technology is described by Professor Anna Blakney, Michael Smith Laboratories and the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as “springboard between DNA and proteinsWhich gives your cells a coded produce a certain protein. “Even before the pandemic, they were working on a mRNA cancer vaccine to treat patients with advanced melanoma“, To explain.

“Just as we can train the immune system to recognize a virus, we can also train the immune system to recognize and kill a virus. cancer cellHe said, adding that such vaccines already tested in some clinical trials.

In fact, Moderna and BioNTech, which now manufacture and supply COVID-19 mRNA vaccines around the world, tested their technology in cancer long before the first SARS-CoV-2 study. However, while clinical trials on covid have shown safety and efficiency, all these successes will not translate easily against the disease which develops abnormal cells, those which invade and destroy the organic tissues.

Is it cancer it is a very complex disease: It is necessary to decide what and how much antigens to put in the vaccine, and when it is best to administer it and with what other therapies. Targeting a single antigen allows this disease to find another route and spread.

“Messenger RNA is an instruction to the cell; he tells the cell what to do. When you have this in hand, it is a very powerful tool because it can get the cell to do what interests youHow to repair pathological alterations, ”explains Rubén Artero, genetics expert and academic at the University of Valencia, Spain.

The challenge of a cancer vaccine is no small feat, because Cancer cells are very similar to healthy cells and are able to hide or even inactivate the immune system.

MRNA could be used to overcome both limitations:

• On the one hand, RNA makes it possible to prepare vaccines for any tumor antigen, and even personalized vaccines for mutations specific to the tumor of each patient.
• On the other hand, messenger RNA can be used for our cells to prepare immunostimulatory proteins or to inhibit immune checkpoints so that the tumor can no longer go unnoticed.

A means to an end

“Basically the idea is to get the immune system recognize cancerSaid John Cooke, medical director of the RNA Therapeutics Program at DeBakey Cardiovascular Center at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.

The vaccine does not require any living biological component as traditional formulas do. “This means the procedure can be standardized and extended so that vaccine development is faster than traditional production methods,” the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.

Rubén Artero, genetics expert and scholar at the University of Valencia, Spain.

Messenger RNA is an instruction to the cell; he tells the cell what to do.

A vaccine “tailor-made” for the patient

“When we say cancer vaccine, it looks like there’s going to be an injection and that’s not what’s going to happen. What will happen, if it works, they will be done individualized vaccines for each patient which will reflect their cancer in particular, ”said Noubar Afeyan, co-founder of Moderna, one of the pioneering companies in the development of mRNA technology and which integrated it into its vaccine against COVID-19.

The idea of ​​a personalized vaccine against cancer has long been promoted by experts who have been experimenting with the mRNA technique for over 30 years. Over the past decade, it has been tested on diseases such as influenza, Zika virus, and rabies.

Experts believe that in the future, a single vaccine could provide protection against multiple diseases, as several mRNA codes different could be given in a single injection. Until 2020, the technology had never been licensed for use in humans. Corn pandemic, and the huge international push for immunization, have helped change that landscape.