Power Duo: Cancer and mRNA Vaccines
Cancer patients given an mRNA COVID vaccine within a few months of immunotherapy treatment fared better than unvaccinated patients.
Joe Raedle/Staff/Getty Images
Recent research indicates that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may make some cancer treatments more effective. As Science News’s Meghan Rosen reports, even when these vaccines aren’t designed for cancer, they could make tumors more sensitive to concurrent therapies.
👩🏼🏫 Teaching your immune system
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is a molecular instruction set inside your cells. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, the mRNA holds information on assembling a segment of the coronavirus spike protein. That teaches your body to recognize the protein and fight it. Cancer mRNA vaccines work similarly, but encode bits of tumor proteins instead of viral ones.
A finding published this past July in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering showed that an experimental mRNA vaccine given to tumorous mice improved the activity of immunotherapy drugs, empowering the immune system to better harness the drugs and tackle cancer. But, the vaccine didn’t include tumor mRNA. The authors discovered that the mRNA itself, rather than what it encoded, galvanized the immune system against cancer.
The authors then analyzed records of about 1,000 people with a form of lung cancer, who also received an immunotherapy drug. Nearly 200 of the patients also received a COVID mRNA vaccine within 100 days of drug treatment. The researchers reported in October in the journal Nature that three years after diagnosis, 56 percent of vaccinated patients were still alive compared to 31 percent of unvaccinated patients. This played out similarly in patients with another cancer.
💪 A novel approach to cancer treatment
It’s still too early to say whether combining a general mRNA vaccine with immunotherapy is beneficial for cancer patients. While there’s promising evidence, we still need a clinical trial — which the study authors are working on. As cancer is a group of diseases rather than one, the treatment approach is many-pronged. If mRNA vaccines edify the human immune system to be more receptive to treatment, it could be another tool in our growing toolkit to treat cancer. And as mRNA vaccines have been having a moment since 2020 — while meeting resistance, too — all the better to continue putting them to use beyond viral indications.
🤝 mRNA vaccines x cancer immunotherapy
A number of companies have gotten on the mRNA train, using this method to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases and more.
- RNAimmune: This Maryland-based Series A startup, founded in 2020, uses mRNA as the basis for its therapeutics and vaccines to treat an array of indications, including cancer. Over three funding rounds they’ve raised $39.4 million, most recently $27 million in March 2022.
- Abogen Biosciences: Founded in 2019, this Series C company based in Suzhou, China pursues mRNA drug discovery for a suite of indications, including oncology and autoimmune diseases. They’ve raised a total of $1.4 billion over six funding rounds.
The wonders of mRNA vaccines continue to pay off.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Society for Science and Science News Media Group assumes no liability for any financial decisions or losses resulting from the use of the content in this newsletter. Society for Science and Science News Media Group do not receive payments from, and do not have any ownership or investment interest in, the companies mentioned in this newsletter. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.