mRNA vaccine showed strong immune response against brain tumor

Brain cancers continue to be one of the most challenging tumors to treat. They often do not respond to traditional treatments when chemotherapies are unable to penetrate the protective barrier around the brain. Other treatments, such as radiation therapy and surgery, can leave patients with debilitating, lifelong side effects. Now, there is new hope in the mRNA vaccine.

mRNA technology to end deadliest brain tumor

Brain cancers continue to be one of the most challenging tumors to treat. They often do not respond to traditional treatments because many chemotherapies are unable to penetrate the protective barrier around the brain. Other treatments, such as radiation therapy and surgery, can leave patients with debilitating, lifelong side effects.

New hope appears after a first human clinical trial, with four adults, used a technology that we heard about for the first time in the vaccine against COVID-19. According to the University of Florida (UF), an mRNA vaccine was used against cancer that was able to quickly reprogram the immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most lethal brain tumor.

As mentioned by the university, the results of the study are based on a test with 10 dogs that developed brain tumors and whose owners approved their participation (as there were no other treatment options). The vaccine was also tested with rats, as mentioned by the US university in a statement.

The discovery will now be tested in a Phase 1 pediatric clinical trial for brain cancer.

The researchers mentioned.

This research has now been published in the North American scientific journal Cell, and could be a new way of using the immune system to combat treatment-resistant cancers. Although it uses mRNA and lipid nanoparticle technology (like the COVID-19 vaccines), it uses “the patient's tumor cells to create a personalized vaccine” and has “a newly designed and complex delivery mechanism”.

Instead of injecting isolated particles, we are injecting clusters of particles that wrap around each other like onions, like a bag full of onions. And the reason we did this in the context of cancer is that these clusters alert the immune system in a much more profound way than single particles would.

Explained author Elias Sayour, a pediatric oncologist at UF Health, who pioneered the new vaccine, which, like other immunotherapies, attempts to "educate" the immune system so it knows that a tumor is foreign.

Vaccine causes surprising reaction in just 48 hours

Among the most impressive discoveries is how quickly the new method, administered intravenously, stimulated a vigorous immune system response to reject the tumor.

In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors change from what we call 'cold' - immune cold, very few immune cells, very muted immune response - to 'hot' - very active immune response. This was very surprising given how quickly it happened, and what it told us is that we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very quickly against these cancers, and that is critical to unlocking the later effects of the immune response.

Said Elias Sayour.

Glioblastoma is one of the most devastating diagnoses, with a median survival of about 15 months. The current standard of care involves surgery, radiation, and some combination of chemotherapy.

The new publication is the culmination of “promising results” obtained by the Sayour team over seven years of studies. With approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA – the US agency to protect public health), researchers have now carried out this small clinical trial, planned to ensure the safety and feasibility of the tests before carrying out a larger trial.

[...] While mRNA vaccines and therapeutics are certainly a hot topic since the COVID pandemic, this is a new and unique way of delivering mRNA to generate these really significant and rapid immune responses that we are seeing in animals and humans.

Scientists point out that, although it is premature to assess the clinical effects of the vaccine for now, patients lived without the disease for longer than expected or survived longer than expected.

The 10 pet dogs lived an average of 139 days, compared to an average survival of 30 to 60 days typical for dogs with the disease.

For the new clinical trial, Sayour's lab will partner with a multi-institutional consortium, the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium, to ship the immunotherapy treatment to pediatric hospitals across the country. To do this, they will receive each patient's tumor, manufacture the personalized vaccine at the UF and send it back to the patient's medical team.

It is increasingly evident that the mRNA vaccine was one of the great technologies presented to the world to combat the pandemic. And this technology will be increasingly applied as a way to cure many of the cancers that plague human beings.