Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines may be the hottest thing in science now, as they helped turn the tide against COVID-19 by preventing infection. Find information below on what they discussed for Phase 1 Trials, the promising results and recent findings.
Phase 1 Pancreatic Vaccine Trial Results
Now results from the phase 1 trial, reported May 10 in Nature, suggest that the vaccines cause an effective and lasting immune response. In 8 of 16 patients studied, the vaccines activated powerful immune cells, called T cells, that can recognize the pancreatic cancer specific to a patient. These patients also showed delayed recurrence of their pancreatic cancers, suggesting that the T cells activated by the vaccines may be having the desired effect — to keep pancreatic cancers in check.
“These exciting results indicate we may someday be able to use vaccines as a therapy against pancreatic cancer,” Dr. Balachandran says. “The evidence supports our strategy to tailor each vaccine to each patient’s tumor.”
Next Steps After Promising Results
A larger, randomized clinical trial is set to open involving patients at multiple sites in various countries. MSK expects to begin enrolling patients in the trial this summer.
Here, Dr. Balachandran discusses how the initial laboratory discovery and a collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and BioNTech, an immunotherapy company, led to this potential treatment for pancreatic cancer.
What do these recent findings tell us about using mRNA vaccines to treat pancreatic cancer?
It shows that we are on the right track: An mRNA vaccine can trigger T cells to recognize their pancreatic cancers as foreign. Moreover, the vaccines stimulated many such T cells, and these T cells could last in patients up to two years later, even though patients received chemotherapy after vaccination. At a median follow-up of 18 months, in patients with such vaccine-expanded T cells, the cancers had not come back. In contrast, cancers came back approximately 13 months after surgery in patients where vaccines did not expand T cells.
One of our patients, Barbara Brigham, received the vaccine in 2021 and continues to do well.
It’s exciting to see that a personalized vaccine could enlist the immune system to fight pancreatic cancer — which urgently needs better treatments. It’s also motivating as we may be able to use such personalized vaccines to treat other deadly cancers.
To read the full article, click here.
In addition, another study has used an artificial intelligence model to predict individuals at high risk developing pancreatic cancer up to 3 years before their official diagnosis. This could lead to earlier diagnosis of those with elevated risks. To read this published article, click here.