Scientists Develop Personalized Anti-Cancer Vaccine Cancer ha | The world is good

Scientists Develop Personalized Anti-Cancer Vaccine

Cancer has a major impact on society across the world. There were an estimated 18 million cancer cases around the world in 2018. Recently, a group of scientists from Montreal was able to make progress in the search for an effective drug.

In a study published in Nature, the researchers show how they came to create an effective personalized vaccine by combining oncolytic viruses with small synthetic molecules (peptides) specific to the targeted cancer.

For a vaccine to induce an immune response, it has to contain elements that stimulate the cells of the immune system—the famous white blood cells.

These elements, called adjuvants, are ingredients in all vaccines. They allow the human body to perceive potential danger and contain the threat by sending its army of immune cells.

Our approach consists of using oncolytic viruses to stimulate this immune response and direct it towards the cancer. To succeed, we create a vaccine by mixing viruses with synthetic peptides (antigens) that resemble the targeted cancer. - Said Bourgeois-Daigneault study participant.

Because it’s true that, to be effective, the vaccine has to be personalized for each patient, based on the mutations specific to each cancer cell. Thanks to the identification work done by other research teams, we can predict what peptides to use for each patient through the information obtained from a biopsy.

The advantage of our approach is that the oncolytic viruses themselves have the power to kill the cancer. We can thus attack the cancer on two fronts: kill it directly with the virus and induce an immune response, thanks not only to the virus, but to the vaccine as well.

On our mice, we were able to show the efficacy of the resulting immunization.