Cancer vaccine will soon be tested on humans

Anna Kerman, XX2 century, based on the materials of IFLScience: Promising Cancer "Vaccine" Is Set To Begin Human Trials

An immunotherapeutic drug for the treatment of oncological diseases, which recently demonstrated impressive results in mice, has become a step closer to clinical medicine.

Less than two months ago in the publication Science Translational Medicine published the results of a study conducted on the basis of Stanford University (Stanford University). During the experiments, scientists were able to activate the immune system of experimental animals by injecting two immunostimulating substances directly into the tumor. After injection, T-lymphocytes began to recognize tumor cells and destroy them – both in the primary tumor and in distant metastatic foci.

T cells are usually ineffective against cancer cells. And there may be two reasons for this. Firstly, tumor cells may be too similar to healthy cells of the body – and then T-lymphocytes "do not recognize" enemies. Secondly, some cancer cells secrete substances that help to "hide" from the immune system – in this case, T-cells simply "do not notice" the enemy.

Existing antibody-based oncological drugs work only if strictly defined mutations are present in tumor cells. These drugs are effective, but, unfortunately, only against some types of cancer. A different approach is used in the recently registered CAR therapy. It also stimulates the work of T-cells, but for treatment, genetic modification is necessary – individual for each individual patient.

And now, a team from Stanford discovers that simply injecting two substances into a tumor mobilizes T-lymphocytes, forcing them to fight genetically identical tumor cells. Moreover, the new therapy proved to be effective against various types of cancer. The best result (97% of those cured) was recorded when modeling lymphomas.

Now the researchers plan to test the new approach on patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Dr. Ronald Levy, head of the upcoming Phase I clinical trials and lead author of the previous study, hopes to recruit 35 adult patients by the end of this year.

Each volunteer will first receive low-dose radiotherapy. It will kill some of the cancer cells and weaken the remaining ones. Then the participants will be injected with new drugs. The main purpose of the study will be to determine the optimal dosage and identify side effects.

"The two drugs that we are introducing are manufactured by various pharmaceutical companies. Their safety when used in humans has already been proven," explains Levy. "We are testing the combination."

The first drug is a drug called anti–OX40, an antibody-based drug that activates both CD4 T cells (they provide communication within the immune system) and CD8 T cells (these are killers that release chemicals to destroy other cells).

The second drug used in the mixture is a short fragment of synthetic DNA responsible for the expression of TLR9 protein on the surface of cells of the immune system. The latter, in turn, activates the production of antibodies and promotes the formation of specialized immune memory cells that can quickly "sound the alarm" if similar cancer cells appear in the body in the future.

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