Melanoma vaccine

Soon and for people

Israeli scientists have developed a new melanoma vaccine that has shown impressive results in mice. At the request of the "Snob", doctor Victor Levy tells what the breakthrough is and how soon it will be possible to vaccinate people

Melanoma is the most dangerous of skin tumors and one of the most malignant oncological diseases. The main trouble is that the disease metastasizes (spreads) through the lymph and blood in the early stages and is often diagnosed already in the late stages (III, IV), when surgical treatment is powerless. Often, after years, the disease returns with metastases, even in cases where the cancer was diagnosed before the appearance of metastases and excised entirely.

Until recently, there was virtually no effective treatment for metastatic melanoma. It is possible to call interferon effective only with a very big stretch.

But with the advent of targeted (biological) drugs and immunotherapy, the situation has radically changed. Unfortunately, immunotherapy helps only in 40% of cases, which in itself is a huge breakthrough in the treatment of this terrible disease. But what should the remaining 60% of patients do?

And here is a new discovery: Israeli scientists from Tel Aviv University have developed a new nanovaccine for melanoma, and it has proved effective in research on mice. This development, according to the researchers, can pave the way for effective treatment and even prevention of this disease. The results of the study were published in the serious scientific publication Nature Technology (Conniot et al., Immunization with mannosylated nanovaccines and inhibition of the immune-suppressing microenvironment sensitizes melanoma to immune checkpoint modulators). 

The study was led by Professor Ronit Satchi-Finaro, Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Head of the Laboratory for Oncological Research and Nanomedicine of the Faculty of Sackler Tel Aviv University. The scientific work was performed by Anna Skomparin and postdoctoral fellow Joao Conniot. 

The essence of the scientific breakthrough is this: scientists have created microscopic particles whose size does not exceed 200 nanometers. These particles are a "booster rocket" delivering cancer antigens (peptides) to the tumor. The body gives an immune response to peptides, which are usually secreted by a melanoma tumor in small quantities. These antigens, only in large quantities, were packed into nanoparticles (a carrier rocket) and sent them to travel to the tumor with a blood flow. When they reach the target, the body's T cells initiate a strong immune response, and the patient's body begins to fight cancer. 

Three groups of experiments were conducted:

1. Healthy mice were injected with a vaccine and then melanoma cells. The tumor did not develop in mice, which means that the vaccine has a preventive effect. The mechanism of its action is similar to the mechanism of long-known and well-known vaccines: against measles, chickenpox, rubella, influenza, etc.
2. Then the nanoparticles of the vaccine were injected into mice with melanoma patients together with an immunotherapy drug of the PDL-1 inhibitor group. This group includes, for example, drugs such as Opdivo and Keytruda. The combined effect of the drugs gave a better result than monotherapy with a PDL-1 inhibitor. And with the addition of the drug Ibrutinib (Ibrutinib), used today for the treatment of blood cancer, the results were even better. The fact is that Ibrutinib promotes the production of specific leukocytes that destroy tumors. 
3. The use of nanovaccine was tested on mice with brain metastases and gave a positive result, which means that this treatment can also be used to treat patients with distant metastases, including the brain. It should be noted that the treatment of brain metastases is always the biggest problem, because most drugs do not penetrate the brain through the blood-brain barrier.
4. This scientific work gave rise to a completely new approach in the treatment of melanoma, even at the very late stages of the malignant process. Moreover, it is hoped that this approach can be used to create vaccines for other types of cancer, such as kidney, lung, bladder, pancreatic, breast cancer.

In the near future, human trials of the vaccine will begin. This process usually takes 5-10 years. But in some cases, if the results are very convincing, recently the FDA commission gives accelerated permission for the use of drugs in clinical practice, as it was, for example, with the first drug Kymriah CAR-T technology.

Truly, miracles are happening before our eyes. And I am looking forward to licensing a new drug to use it for patients of my clinic.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru