Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, and late detection makes most treatments ineffective. Preventing the development of the disease with vaccines can solve this problem.
Despite the fact that today there are already preventive vaccines for viral cancers (from human papillomavirus in cervical cancer), vaccination against non-viral cancers remains a difficult task. During the study, the vaccine system doubled the survival time of mice with pancreatic cancer. It is important to note that the system can be personalized for a specific patient and could potentially be suitable for fighting other types of cancer.
The essence of the method is to train the immune system to recognize and destroy antigens by introducing them into the body.
To create the vaccine, the researchers created pluripotent stem cells from normal mouse cells and turned them into pancreatic cancer cells by adding mutations to the genetic code of two proto-oncogenes. The scientists then infected these cells with oncolytic adenoviruses. Such viruses not only kill cells, reducing their ability to form tumors, but also activate the immune system against these cells.
After injection, the cells die and secrete antigens specific to pancreatic cancer cells, stimulating the immune system to recognize the occurrence of cancer and prevent its development.
Thus, scientists managed to delay the onset of the disease by vaccination, doubling the survival time of mice compared to unvaccinated animals.
The genetic "portrait" of even the same types of tumors varies from person to person. This means that a treatment that is effective for one patient may not be effective for another. It is noteworthy that artificially created cancer cells were genetically similar to tumor cells that arose naturally. This suggests that cells can be taken from individuals at risk of developing the disease and used to create personalized vaccines.
Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate among all common cancers: less than 5% of patients survive longer than five years.
One of the reasons for such a low survival rate is the absence of symptoms, which leads to a late diagnosis, so the creation of such a vaccine is more than an urgent task. Although these studies are in the early stages, they prove the possibility of successfully creating a vaccine against pancreatic cancer.
Article by Lu et al. A Virus-Infected, Reprogrammed Somatic cell-derived Tumor cell (VIReST) vaccination regime can prevent initiation and progression of pancreatic cancer is published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Elena Panasyuk, portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Queen Mary University of London: UK and China research team take first steps towards a vaccine for pancreatic cancer.