(HealthDay News) — An experimental cancer vaccine can quickly reprogram a person’s immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer, a small, preliminary study has found.
The cancer vaccine is based on mRNA technology similar to that used in COVID vaccines, but in this case a patient’s own tumor cells are used to create a personalized vaccine, researchers said.
The vaccine teaches the immune system to see tumor cells as a dangerous virus, prompting a vigorous immune response against the cancer, researchers said.
One of the most impressive results was how quickly the injectable vaccine turns the immune system against a brain tumor, said senior researcher Dr. Elias Sayour, a pediatric oncologist with University of Florida Health who pioneered the new vaccine.
In a first-ever human clinical trial with four adult patients, the vaccine prompted a quick and apparently effective immune attack on cancer.
“In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’ — immune cold, very few immune cells, very silenced immune response — to ‘hot,’ very active immune response,” Sayour said in a university news release.
“That was very surprising given how quick this happened, and what that told us is we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very rapidly against these cancers, and that’s critical to unlock the later effects of the immune response,” Sayour added.
The results mirror those seen in 10 pet dogs with brain tumors who served as early test subjects, as well as lab mice. Dogs offer a natural opportunity to test brain cancer therapies because they’re the only other species that regularly develops brain tumors, the researchers explained.
The vaccine now will be tested in a phase 1 pediatric clinical trial for brain cancer,
