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An unprecedented “super” vaccine can stop cancer growing and spreading completely,
Researchers say they have evolved A new “nanoparticle-based” jab that could prevent melanomapancreatic and triple-negative breast cancer In rats,
The study showed that depending on the type of cancer, 88 percent of the vaccinated mice remained tumor-free – while the spread of the disease was reduced and in some cases even stopped completely.
New research not only shows that the drug can shrink and clear cancerous tumors in rodents, but that it may also have preventative action. The experimental drug has not yet been tested on humans.
Prabhani Attukorale, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who led the study, said: “By engineering these nanoparticles to activate the immune system through multi-pathway activation in conjunction with cancer-specific antigens, we can inhibit tumor growth with remarkable survival rates.”
Vaccines generally work by providing an antigen, a fragment of a disease-causing pathogen, such as cancer cells, and an adjuvant, a substance that helps the immune system recognize the antigen and eliminate it.
To overcome the difficulties in finding suitable adjuvants in cancer treatment, researchers at UMass Amherst say they have developed a lipid nanoparticle-based “super adjuvant” that delivers two different adjuvants.
According to the findings, three weeks after the “super” vaccination, mice were exposed to melanoma cells, 80 per cent of which remained tumor-free, while none of the mice given the traditional jab survived longer than 35 days.
It was also shown that the jab prevents the spread of cancer in the lungs. “Metastasis is the biggest hurdle for cancer across the board,” said Ms Atukorale, a co-author of the paper. “The majority of tumor deaths are still due to metastases, and this almost puts us behind work in hard-to-reach cancers like melanoma and the like.” pancreatic cancerBut in the test, none of the “super” vaccinated mice developed lung tumors, while all other mice did.
However, the researchers then conducted a second test. In the first part of the study, antigens matching the type of cancer were developed and used, but in the second, they used dead cancer cells taken directly from the tumor mass, called tumor lysate.
After mice were “super” vaccinated with a nanoparticle lysate jab, they were exposed to different types of cancer cells, and the results were even more impressive.
Tumor rejection rates were 88 percent for pancreatic cancer, 75 percent for breast cancer and 69 percent for melanoma, with the remainder remaining tumor-free when researchers tested whether the disease would spread.
“The tumor-specific T-cell responses that we are able to generate — that’s really the key behind the survival benefit,” said Griffin Kane, a postdoctoral research associate at UMass Amherst and co-author of the paper.
Researchers whose study was published cell report medicine Last week, said their design “provides a platform approach that can be used across multiple types of cancer”.