COVID-19 mRNA vaccines can trigger the immune system to recognize and kill cancer, research finds
THE COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives worldwide during the pandemic could help the immune system fight cancer. This is the surprising conclusion of a new study which we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature.
While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team, led by Elias Sayour, pediatric oncologistdiscovered that mRNA can train the immune system to kill tumors — even though mRNA is not linked to cancer.
SO we examined the clinical results for more than 1,000 patients with advanced melanoma and lung cancer treated with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors. This treatment is a common approach used by doctors to train the immune system to kill cancer. It does this by blocking a protein produced by tumor cells to turn off immune cells, allowing the immune system to continue killing the cancer.
Remarkably, patients who received the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna within 100 days of starting immunotherapy were more than twice as likely to be alive after three years compared to those who received neither vaccine. Surprisingly, patients with tumors that generally do not respond well to immunotherapy also saw very significant benefits, with almost five times better three-year overall survival. This link between improved survival and receipt of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine remained strong even after controlling for factors such as disease severity and comorbid conditions.
To understand the underlying mechanism, we turned to animal models. We found that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines act as an alarm, prompting the body’s immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells and overcome the cancer’s ability to deactivate immune cells. When combined, vaccines and immune checkpoint inhibitors coordinate to unleash the full power of the immune system to kill cancer cells.
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Why it matters
Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized cancer treatment over the past decade curing many patients previously considered incurable. However, these therapies are ineffective in patients with “cold” tumors which successfully evade immune detection.
Our results suggest that mRNA vaccines could provide just the spark the immune system needs to turn these “cold” tumors into “hot.” If validated in our next clinical trial, we hope that this widely available and inexpensive intervention could extend the benefits of immunotherapy to millions of patients who would not otherwise benefit from this therapy.
What other research is underway
Unlike infectious disease vaccines, which are used to prevent infection, therapeutic vaccines against cancer are used to help train the immune systems of cancer patients to better fight tumors.
We and many others are currently working hard TO DO personalized mRNA vaccines For cancer patients. This involves taking a small sample of a patient’s tumor and using machine learning algorithms to predict which proteins in the tumor would be most effective. best targets for a vaccine. However, this approach can be expensive and difficult to manufacture.
In contrast, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do not need to be personalized, are already widely available at low or no cost worldwide, and could be administered at any time during a patient’s treatment. Our discoveries which mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have substantial antitumor effects provide hope that they could help extend the anti-cancer benefits of mRNA vaccines to all.
What’s next
In pursuit of this goal, we are preparing to test this treatment strategy in patients in a national clinical trial of people with lung cancer. People receiving an immune checkpoint inhibitor will be randomized to receive or not receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during treatment.
This study will tell us whether COVID-19 mRNA vaccines should be included in the standard of care for patients receiving an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Ultimately, we hope that this approach will help many patients treated with immunotherapy, and particularly those who currently lack effective treatment options.
This work illustrates how a tool born from a global pandemic can provide a new weapon against cancer and quickly extend the benefits of existing treatments to millions of patients. By harnessing a familiar vaccine in a new way, we hope to extend the lifesaving benefits of immunotherapy to cancer patients who were previously left behind.
This edited article is republished from The conversation under Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
