New vaccine combines nanotech and mRNA to eradicate pancreatic cancer

The promising new research by scientists at Case Western Reserve University and The Cleveland Clinic unlocks a new vaccine that could potentially eliminate the disease.

Just 13% of pancreatic cancer patients make it through five years, making it the deadliest cancer of all. It affects some 500,000 patients globally per year.

But the new treatment, combining an mRNA vaccine with nanoparticle delivery resulted in 50% of test subjects becoming cancer-free within months of the jab.

Super aggressive and hard to catch
— Pancreatic cancer is super aggressive, said Lu, the M. Frank Rudy and Margaret C. Rudy Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Case School of Engineering, to the Case Western’s The Daily. — So it came as a surprise that our approach works so well.

The vaccine was, as far as tekntoum can tell, tested on mice with human-like pancreatic tumors.

mRNA plus nanoparticles
It works by using an mRNA payload to train the immune system to recognize and target cancer cells for destruction, delivered into the body via a lipid nanoparticle.

The good news is that this is not a personalized treatment, like many other cancer vaccines gonig through trials right now.

Works on all
The vaccine targets the common parts of the «pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma,» (PDAC) the most pervasive form of the disease, and its most common mutations.

That means it doesn’t require expensive personalized gene sequencing or weeks of lab work, and could be mass-produced and widely distributed.

— This platform has the potential to transform clinical care for this devastating disease, said Li Lily Wang, an associate professor of molecular medicine at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, also a staff member in translational hematology and oncology research at Cleveland Clinic. — I am excited to see that our novel nano-vaccine worked so well in eliciting vigorous responses from tumor-reactive T cells—which are typically low in numbers and unable to control tumor growth.

Could be used preventatively
Because of this, the vaccine could possibly be injected in everyone at risk for pancreatic cancer, as well those suffering from the disease. We could see risk testing and an easy jab some time in the future.

— We’ve shown that our vaccine generated immune memory in preclinical models, Lu said. — If we could do that in patients, we could prevent PDAC before tumors start forming, so the vaccines could be either therapeutic or preventative.

The researchers are now moving to safety studies before going on to human clinical trials — and no timeline has been given for when the vaccine could reach patients.

Read more: Case Western’s The Daily gets more technical, New Atlas goes through the research.