마인츠 대학 연구진, 암치료 만능 백신 임상 시험 성공 We’re fighting cancer with a universal vaccine

We’re fighting cancer with a universal vaccine

요하네스 구텐베르크 마인츠 대학교 연구진들이 암 치료 만능 백신(universal vaccine) 개발 임상 시험에 성공한 것으로 알려졌다.

"이 백신은 면역 체계를 강화해 암세포 증식을 억제하는 치료법으로 유전 암호가 내장된 RNA 백신을 주입해 모든 종류의 암 세포들을 공격하는 치료법"이라고 네이처(Nature)지가 알렸다.

RNA 백신은 항체 생성을 돕고 면역력을 높이는 T세포를 활성화한다. 연구진들은 임상시험을 하기 전 실험용 쥐에 1차 백신 실험을 진행했다.

인디펜던트(Independent)는 우거 사힌 마인츠 대학 교수를 인용해 " RNA 백신은 모든 암 치료를 가능케 하는 만능 백신이 될 수 있을 것"이라며 "RNA 백신 암 치료법을 활용하면 다른 건강한 세포의 손상 없이 암을 치료할 수 있다"고 주장했다. .sputniknews

By Chris Smith on Jun 11, 2016

How cool would it be to stop cancer dead in its tracks using a vaccine that would work regardless of cancer type? It turns out that humanity is already thinking along those lines, and it’s looking to introduce a type of “universal cancer vaccine” that would be able to trigger the human’s body built-in defenses to kill cancerous cells.

Specifically, researchers at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, have initiated a limited safety human trial, after experiments on mice showed impressive results.

Unlike other vaccines that are supposed to prevent a certain disease, the cancer vaccine would only be administered to cancer patients. Each vaccine therapy would actually be a customized treatment, Science Alert reports, as it would use pieces of RNA extracted from the patient’s cancer cells to trigger a reaction from his or her immune system.

“[Such] vaccines are fast and inexpensive to produce, and virtually any tumor antigen can be encoded by RNA,” the team of doctors wrote. “Thus, the nanoparticulate RNA immunotherapy approach introduced here may be regarded as a universally applicable novel vaccine class for cancer immunotherapy.”

Because cancer cells can look and behave like normal cells, the immune system does not attack them. However, by using a cancer-specific antigen, the vaccine would fool the immune system into initiating an all-out attack against all cells that express it, taking out tumors anywhere in the body.

To deliver it, scientists have coated the cancer RNA in a fatty acid membrane that has a slightly negative charge. This allows it to travel anywhere in the body, including spleen, lymph nodes, and bone marrow.

Once the vaccine meets dendritic immune cells, the body’s T cells get to inspect the RNA information. The next response is the neutralization of all tumorous cells that are similar in design.

Tests conducted on mice showed that their immune systems were able to combat cancer aggressively. The team started a limited human trial that includes three patients with melanoma. The point of the test was to see whether the vaccine is safe for humans, and the results are promising. The initial results are promising, with side effects including flu-like symptoms, which are better than what comes with chemotherapy treatments.

A larger trial can only start in the following years. The team has to wait 12 months to perform follow-up tests on the three patients before moving to the next step, which involves the actual test of the vaccine’s efficiency at killing cancer.

http://bgr.com/2016/06/11/universal-cancer-vaccine-trial

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