A research team from University of Michigan recently registered success in treating colon and melanoma cancer tumors in mice with customized therapeutic vaccines. James Moon, the assistant professor in pharmaceutical sciences as well as biomedical engineering’s at the John Gideon Searle says, “We are basically educating the immune system with these nanodiscs so that immune cells can attack cancer cells in a personalized manner.” In the rapidly evolving fight against cancer it is a remarkable development that is closely related with personalized immunotherapy.
The Therapeutic cancer vaccine we are talking about here makes use of nanodiscs that are filed with tumor neoantigens that are small mutations discovered in tumor cells. It completes the action through generation of T-cells that identifies these neoantigens, the technique targets the cancer mutation and prevents tumor growth by eliminating the cells responsible for it. It is a step ahead from other preventive vaccinations as these aim to kill the already growing cancer cells. Moon said, “The idea is that these vaccine nanodiscs will trigger the immune system to fight the existing cancer cells in a personalized manner.”
This nanodisc technique was tested over mice with the help of established melanoma and colon based cancer tumors. Once the vaccine was injected, 27 per cent T-cells present in mice blood targeted the tumors. The nanodisc technology was able to finish the tumors within 10 days among maximum mice which is a remarkable growth. After waiting for seventy days, the team members injected the same mice with tumor cells and to their surprise these cells were rejected by the immune system of these organisms. Moon adds, “The Holy Grail in cancer immunotherapy is to eradicate tumors and prevent future recurrence without systemic toxicity, and our studies have produced very promising results in mice.” The technology has been developed with the help of very minute and high density lipoproteins that scale somewhere close to 10 nanometers.
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