21 ms·
mRNA cancer therapy now in human trials after shrinking mouse tumours
- neonate 5y agohttps://archive.md/kNbak https://archive.md/kNbak
- rpmisms 5y agoDifferent article, same subject, no paywall: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/biontech-reports-promising-data-mrna-cocktail-mouse-models-colon-cancer-and-melanoma https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/biontech-reports-prom...
- formvoltron 5y agoless sensational gibberish too. Nice find.
- xchip 5y agoThe important bit: "The researchers injected the mRNA mixture into colon and melanoma tumors in 20 mice. The treatment halted tumor growth, and caused a complete regression of the cancer in 17 of the animals, they reported."
- ekianjo 5y agomost cancers induced in mice are artificially managed so its hardly telling in terms of human efficacy. And in any case toxicity profile is another hurdle to cross in Phase 1 trials.
- NamTaf 5y agoIt seems like with the flurry of support behind mRNA tech, right now is quite an exciting time to be in biotech. It's early days, but from what (little, admittedly) I've read there seems to be a lot of promise behind it. If it lives up to even 10% of its theorised promise, we're potentially going to see a lot of amazing treatments in the coming couple of decades.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoBio tech is fascinating those days. The anti-aging community, the athletes and the nutrition crowd are so enthusiastic it created a wave of funding and activity. Of course, quantity doesn't mean quality, but you can find some real gems. And now with covid, it's exploding in popularity.
- claudiug 5y agowhere I can read more about anti-aging community. :)
- Insalgo 5y agoTry reddit.com/r/longevity
- jfoster 5y agoThe Hallmarks of Aging: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836174/ and from a previous HN discussion about that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826833) I also found this: https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/ https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/
- TylerLives 5y agohttps://www.sens.org/ https://www.sens.org/
- dennis_jeeves 5y ago
- Borrible 5y agoSo, how often was cancer defeated in mice? I stopped counting some time ago.Not that it isn't useful, but I wouldn't hold my breath. https://www.pcrm.org/news/good-science-digest/mice-are-telling-cancer-researchers-give-it https://www.pcrm.org/news/good-science-digest/mice-are-telli...
- selcuka 5y agoThis article only talks about colon cancer in mice. BioNTech has multiple mRNA based cancer treatment projects and some of them, such as a melanoma treatment, are already in phase 2 trials [1] on humans. Moderna has similar candidates in the pipeline. It looks like it's time to hold our breaths this time. [1] https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/biontech-announces-first-patient-dosed-phase-2-clinical-trial https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...
- lame-robot-hoax 5y agoAs someone who has already had a severely atypical mole removed before the age of 23, and who has a family history of melanoma on both sides of my family, man do I hope their mRNA cancer treatment works well. Though luckily, melanoma seems to be waaaay more treatable now than it was even 15 years ago, but hopefully in another 10-15 years, Stage III or IV melanoma isn’t much more serious than a basal cell carcinoma.
- mathw 5y agoWhen my music teacher had melanoma, they tried so many things. Some of them were so new that when she was first diagnosed they didn't exist outside a research lab. The progression of cancer treatment has been amazing, but with its ultimate spectre of being a disease that could start with any cell division, any time, anywhere in your body it's so good to see more research paying off. I think most people are scared of it, since we know it's going to get us all eventually (if we don't die of something else first). Sadly my teacher ultimately didn't survive - but without new developments she would probably have died a good five or six years earlier, and her quality of life was really only bad for the last three months or so. She lived to see her children become adults, and she was so grateful for that. But we can dream of a world where nobody in their fifties succumbs to something like this.
- a-dub 5y agofrom what i gather, this was biontech's primary aim before they suddenly were thrust into the vaccine business. i think the idea was not just cancer therapies, but personalized cancer therapies with custom mrnas derived from biopsy material.
- anton96 5y agoOne things that obsesses me now, is how many other technologies are waiting to get has much money as mRNA vaccines did. How often the solution to complex problems is still kinda of "throw some money at it"?
- gameswithgo 5y agomrna was coming anyway, covid was just “lucky” timing
- goldforever 5y agoProbably failing miserably...LOL...just dumb
- neilsense 5y agoWonder if Covid, in terms of deaths, ends up being seen as a significant moment in history as it moved the needle on different kinds of vaccines/treatments and they, in turn, saved more lives than Covid could claim...
- bandris 5y agoThis pandemic is also significant a moment in history when antivacc views gained wide social acceptance. This will hinder future vaccination efforts. I agree with you otherwise.
- snakeboy 5y agoI think a big part of the anti-vax stuff is 1. "mRNA" is still new tech in the public eyes, so it'll take some time to familiarize people with it and not see it as "scary new tech". 2. Covid is (fortunately) less deadly than initially feared, which lead to people not being very worried about it at a personal risk level. If mRNA therapy start rolling out for cancer, you bet people will take it.
- Thorentis 5y agoYeah exactly. I think the risk/reward ratio for many people is still not skewed enough in vaccine's favor compared to COVID. If COVID had been as bad as originally feared, I don't think we'd see as much hesitancy. But if somebody told an anti-vax person "you'll be dead in 3 months if you don't take this mRNA treatment", they'll take it for sure.
- RavlaAlvar 5y agoCan you more deadly with the same infection rate? The original COVID-03 disappeared within half year.
- treme 5y agomaybe we need to live stream ICU's... hospitals world wide are running beyond capacity since covid.
- tchalla 5y agoHere's a summary from Lowe on mRNA for an effective cancer vaccine > And those issues, among others, are what has kept the cancer vaccine field from taking off, mRNA-powered or not. Pre-pandemic, Moderna was working on these, and no doubt they still are. But whereas we could go from "new pathogen" to "new vaccine" in about a year (an amazing feat, to be sure), developing any similarly effective cancer vaccine is already in the "decades and counting" category. There's a huge amount of promise in this area, but don't expect it to zip along like a viral vaccine might be able to. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/what-mrna-good-and-what-it-maybe-isn-t https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/what-mrna-good-and...
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoThis is a pretty exciting part of the mRNA field. There are some mutations that cause cancer (like G12D, G12V, G13D or G12C in KRAS) which allows you to make a single vaccine that can be used by anyone with those mutations. There is also a push to do personalized cancer vaccines where you sequence a single person's cancer and find the top 30 or so mutations in any gene that are different from their normal cells. The biggest issues IMHO with cancer vaccines in the past has been your bodies natural ability to prevent your immune system from attacking itself. With the discovery/invention of checkpoint inhibitors like Keytruda, we may finally have a way to allow your immune system to attack yourself by co-administering Keytruda with the vaccine against your cancer cells [1]. Another reason cancer vaccines may finally show promise is mRNA inherently has the ability to drive an immune response (see BNT162b2/Comirnaty) that elicits T-cell specific to the protein you're coding for. It is believed that cancer-epitope CD8 T-cells specifically are critical for anticancer vaccines, but even if you get good CD8 cells, the second it binds the cancer cell it gets shutdown by the checkpoint proteins on the surface of the cancer cell. If you add a CPI, boom, you don't prevent the CD8 from shutting down and you get cell killing! [1] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03948763 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03948763
- KETpXDDzR 5y agoIf I recall correctly one hurdle for customized medications is the licensing process. Licensing and FDA approving a new medicine is costly. That's one of the reasons bacteriophages are not used nowadays, besides a few exclusions. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6521264/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6521264/)
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoThank you for sharing that link. I always wondered why phage therapy isn't more widely developed. This feels like an example of an exponential tech improvement that our linear democratic institutions are having trouble adapting to. I wonder what the answer will be.
- rmind 5y agoModerna seems to be also developing an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) vaccine [1]. It might not only prevent from some lymphomas and other oncologal diseases, but might also help the people who suffer from the EBV subset of the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) or similar post-viral disorder. It is very exciting, yet it will probably take a decade until these inventions will become available in the market. Medicine is painfully slow. [1] https://investors.modernatx.com/static-files/834b6509-553f-4ee5-84e0-c198bbb850f0 https://investors.modernatx.com/static-files/834b6509-553f-4...
- andrew_ 5y agoObligatory "I Am Legend (2007)" reference. Edit: haha acquire a sense of humor folks
- l5870uoo9y 5y agoCancer is a wide term, any information on which type(s) they are testing it?
- emdowling 5y agoAccording to the article, the treatment needs to be injected directly into the tumour (although this may change in the future) so the focus of these trials is melanomas. They tested on mice with both melanomas and lung tumours, and found that it reduced the size of the lung tumours even though it wasn't directly injected into them. Seriously exciting!
- mabbo 5y agoThat may also be a big deal for brain tumors. Today, tumor removal means cutting a big hole in the skull, digging and scraping and trying to remove all of the tumor, then closing it all up and hoping you didn't cause any serious brain damage while you did all this. I mean, we use the term 'brain surgery' to mean something overly complex, detailed, and confusing. My father had it done in March and we were warned ahead of time that he may go blind, or may have unexpected personality changes. It was all very frightening though he came out just fine, except for a wicked scar. But imagine if instead, doctors could drill a tiny hole just large enough for a needle, inject some mRNA into the tumor and release the patient the same day.
- formerly_proven 5y agoProton therapy is another relatively recent development (recent as in "becoming more widely available"). Unlike photons (gamma/x-ray), protons are charged particles, so they follow a Bragg curve - releasing most of their energy in a narrow range before being fully stopped by the material. This can give very accurate control over where dose is delivered, and also leads to the somewhat paradoxical-seeming situation that the tissue "in front" of the cancer actually receives less dose than the cancer covered by it.
- dave_aiello 5y agoApple News has the complete article at https://apple.news/ANRRWdjsrPEW3QIouD9dSnw https://apple.news/ANRRWdjsrPEW3QIouD9dSnw. (I subscribe to Apple News+ through Apple One. Not certain if it's free for everyone or just for subscribers like me.)
- NicoJuicy 5y agoPlease, do not link to a paywalled article with another paywalled service. Note: Just to be sure if you didn't knew. It doesn't work :)
- senojretep356 5y agoNon-paywall alternative: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/biontech-reports-promising-data-mrna-cocktail-mouse-models-colon-cancer-and-melanoma https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/biontech-reports-prom...
- dave_aiello 5y agoWith all due respect, this is not the cited article. I'm sure you mean that when you said "alternative". Thanks for sharing that BTW.
- 52-6F-62 5y agoIt's helpful for people like me who subscribe to Apple News and not to every outlet independently. Saves from double-dipping. After some recent health developments, I'm very happy to see this one moving along!
- galoisgirl 5y agoNo thanks, I prefer horse dewormer /s
- moistrobot 5y agodon't we need a working mRNA therapeutic first?
- 0x000000001 5y agoTell me when you've tested it in dogs. Dog tumors are almost identical to humans, mice are not.