7 ms·

The cancer vaccine roller coaster (2009)

40 points by rsfern 5y ago

vajrabum 5y ago
There hasn't been a huge amount of progress in this area since this came out in 2009 at least from looking at Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine
- latchkey 5y ago
  While not a direct vaccine, my best friend was just cleared of most of his cancer with immune system based therapy that didn't exist in 2009.
  - hanniabu 5y ago
    Is this mRNA therapy?
    - jcims 5y ago
      Probably not. I’m not GP but the most common are known as ‘checkpoint inhibitors’ that attack one of the pillars of a ‘successful’ cancerous mutation: (over)expression of PD-L1, a surface protein that tells the immune system that it’s sniffing a healthy cell (eg. ~these are not the cells you're looking for~). Checkpoint inhibitors work by binding to those ligands, effectively disabling their spoofing action and allowing unhealthy stench of the cell to flow through. There’s also CAR T-cell therapies which effectively extract and culture T-cells to be more sensitive to the specific disease, then re-introduce them to the patient. These are best for blood cancers. There’s also monoclonal antibodies and a variety of sensitizers in development and being tested. We still have a ways to go, but personally it feels like the immune system is the best agent we have for fighting cancer. It’s entire job is to rid the body of pathogens, down to the individual cell/particle, with an adaptivity and specificity we can only dream of in medicine. Aside from the fact that cancers look just like us for the most part, it’s perfectly suited to the task. The thing I really am looking forward to specifically with the mRNA technology we have today is the ability for a lab to take a sample from a biopsy, identify very specific markers for those cells, and quickly develop targeted therapies for the individual patient. It might be 100 years away, but that feels like the future to me.
      - carlmr 5y ago
        >It might be 100 years away, but that feels like the future to me. I think if it works it's probably quite close now, with how much funding the mRNA scene got through covid. Plagues, wars and famines can often lead to leaps in technology that would have otherwise not worked.
      - jjtheblunt 5y ago
        look at the pipelines for BioNTech and Moderna (both of which predate the diversion of their resources to Covid 2 years ago) and you'll find exactly what you worry is 100 years away, already being done. Not kidding.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        As for the targeted therapies. This is precisely what started being trialed a few years ago. In people, not just in mice. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8
        jcims 5y ago
        This is so good to see. Thanks!
      - mcbain 5y ago
        Of these the PD-L1 and MABs are the most advanced, a number with FDA approvals and used as standard of care for a few cancers. Side effects can be nasty but often controlled by backing off the treatment or steroids (most problems are the immune system attacking the wrong thing like thyroid, colon, pancreas, etc). They’ve been game changing with nearing 50% success rates for some cancers - hence the Nobel prizes. But that still leaves 50% or more. mRNA as a platform is really exciting, but most current trials are personalised and very labour intensive, so intake/trial sites are minimal.
  - derelicto 5y ago
    I worked with a genetics therapeutic company a while ago, CAR-T is looking to be the future of cancer treatment. Extremely expensive but no long term effects observed thus far. That said, its very early in the process to say it's the "cure to cancer".
    - belter 5y ago
      "Car-T cancer treatments: From science fiction to saving lives " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30398672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30398672
  - vajrabum 5y ago
    Very cool. What was the treatment that he got?
pizzazzaro 5y ago
N_A_T_E 5y ago
There is a lot of hype behind mRNA as the next step in training the immune system to fight cancer. I hope it works
- baldfat 5y ago
  mRNA for Covid was built on what was learned from trying to use mRNA for Cancer. I personally think mRNA is going to really help a lot of people in the future. My kid passed away at 12 from Bone Cancer and my sister (not biologically related to my son) died from brain cancer qat 15. There is no treatment for Bone Cancer that actually makes survival any better in the past 35 years. This is a potential first treatment that might change the percentages for kids and adults. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.642615/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.64261... Kid Cancer cures requires a lot more time because kids' cells are always growing are much harder to come up with safe treatments. There was a 20+ year time when not one new chemotherapy was used to treat kids till St. Baldrick's funded research finally introduced something new for kids. If we get something that works on Adults it will take 10+ years to go to kids. If it works on kids then the research will help adults in a year or two. That the world focuses 90%+ on adult cancers is very frustrating.
echelon 5y ago
The lowest hanging fruit for cancer cures is regenerative cloning. When your body develops cancer, get a head transplant onto a monoclonal, antigenless (ABO, HLA, etc.) body grown in a lab. The only cancers it doesn't solve are of the brain, blood, and head. Of course we haven't built any of this technology because it's "icky". But we need to get over ourselves. Our bodies are biological machines. Cloning can be done ethically by decephalization genetically or surgically during development, then artificial innervation, life support, and hormonal development. Grow them in pig uteruses at industrial scale. This approach also solves heart disease, kidney disease, and pretty much everything else. You get a new heart, set of lungs, thymus... It'd likely increase lifespans dramatically. You could choose your height, build, gender... Once it's 20-30 years old and accepted tech, we'd probably even develop transgenic lines with fluorescent hair, increased endurance, magnetoreception, ... Cancer is hundreds of different molecular breakdowns of different cell types. Changes to adhesion, proliferation, signalling, etc. Lots of different problems. And if we "fix it", we're doing nothing to repair the genes of the cells that directly led to cancer. They'll still be sitting on the precipice of developing it again. Replace the body.
- bequanna 5y ago
  Growing the replacement body and getting general acceptance is probably channeling itself, but seems easy compared to connecting the “plumbing and wiring” from the head to the body. How close are we to doing this?
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    Insanely far away if we never start. I think this eventuality is a little odd, but it is worth at least doing some meta-analysis to see if different parts of medicine would be the best to pursue. E.g. we currently focus a lot on palliative care, accepting that death is inevitable. We need to change that expectation if we're ever going to get life extension technology.
- traverseda 5y ago
  I don't think we can join nerves well enough at the moment. Seems like a problem we'd need to solve first.

40 points by rsfern 5y ago

There hasn't been a huge amount of progress in this area since this came out in 2009 at least from looking at Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_vaccine

latchkey 5y ago
While not a direct vaccine, my best friend was just cleared of most of his cancer with immune system based therapy that didn't exist in 2009.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Is this mRNA therapy?
  - jcims 5y ago
    Probably not. I’m not GP but the most common are known as ‘checkpoint inhibitors’ that attack one of the pillars of a ‘successful’ cancerous mutation: (over)expression of PD-L1, a surface protein that tells the immune system that it’s sniffing a healthy cell (eg. ~these are not the cells you're looking for~). Checkpoint inhibitors work by binding to those ligands, effectively disabling their spoofing action and allowing unhealthy stench of the cell to flow through. There’s also CAR T-cell therapies which effectively extract and culture T-cells to be more sensitive to the specific disease, then re-introduce them to the patient. These are best for blood cancers. There’s also monoclonal antibodies and a variety of sensitizers in development and being tested. We still have a ways to go, but personally it feels like the immune system is the best agent we have for fighting cancer. It’s entire job is to rid the body of pathogens, down to the individual cell/particle, with an adaptivity and specificity we can only dream of in medicine. Aside from the fact that cancers look just like us for the most part, it’s perfectly suited to the task. The thing I really am looking forward to specifically with the mRNA technology we have today is the ability for a lab to take a sample from a biopsy, identify very specific markers for those cells, and quickly develop targeted therapies for the individual patient. It might be 100 years away, but that feels like the future to me.
    - carlmr 5y ago
      >It might be 100 years away, but that feels like the future to me. I think if it works it's probably quite close now, with how much funding the mRNA scene got through covid. Plagues, wars and famines can often lead to leaps in technology that would have otherwise not worked.
    - jjtheblunt 5y ago
      look at the pipelines for BioNTech and Moderna (both of which predate the diversion of their resources to Covid 2 years ago) and you'll find exactly what you worry is 100 years away, already being done. Not kidding.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      As for the targeted therapies. This is precisely what started being trialed a few years ago. In people, not just in mice. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8
      - jcims 5y ago
        This is so good to see. Thanks!
    - mcbain 5y ago
      Of these the PD-L1 and MABs are the most advanced, a number with FDA approvals and used as standard of care for a few cancers. Side effects can be nasty but often controlled by backing off the treatment or steroids (most problems are the immune system attacking the wrong thing like thyroid, colon, pancreas, etc). They’ve been game changing with nearing 50% success rates for some cancers - hence the Nobel prizes. But that still leaves 50% or more. mRNA as a platform is really exciting, but most current trials are personalised and very labour intensive, so intake/trial sites are minimal.
- derelicto 5y ago
  I worked with a genetics therapeutic company a while ago, CAR-T is looking to be the future of cancer treatment. Extremely expensive but no long term effects observed thus far. That said, its very early in the process to say it's the "cure to cancer".
  - belter 5y ago
    "Car-T cancer treatments: From science fiction to saving lives " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30398672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30398672
- vajrabum 5y ago
  Very cool. What was the treatment that he got?

pizzazzaro 5y ago

N_A_T_E 5y ago

There is a lot of hype behind mRNA as the next step in training the immune system to fight cancer. I hope it works

baldfat 5y ago
mRNA for Covid was built on what was learned from trying to use mRNA for Cancer. I personally think mRNA is going to really help a lot of people in the future. My kid passed away at 12 from Bone Cancer and my sister (not biologically related to my son) died from brain cancer qat 15. There is no treatment for Bone Cancer that actually makes survival any better in the past 35 years. This is a potential first treatment that might change the percentages for kids and adults. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.642615/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.64261... Kid Cancer cures requires a lot more time because kids' cells are always growing are much harder to come up with safe treatments. There was a 20+ year time when not one new chemotherapy was used to treat kids till St. Baldrick's funded research finally introduced something new for kids. If we get something that works on Adults it will take 10+ years to go to kids. If it works on kids then the research will help adults in a year or two. That the world focuses 90%+ on adult cancers is very frustrating.

echelon 5y ago

The lowest hanging fruit for cancer cures is regenerative cloning. When your body develops cancer, get a head transplant onto a monoclonal, antigenless (ABO, HLA, etc.) body grown in a lab. The only cancers it doesn't solve are of the brain, blood, and head. Of course we haven't built any of this technology because it's "icky". But we need to get over ourselves. Our bodies are biological machines. Cloning can be done ethically by decephalization genetically or surgically during development, then artificial innervation, life support, and hormonal development. Grow them in pig uteruses at industrial scale. This approach also solves heart disease, kidney disease, and pretty much everything else. You get a new heart, set of lungs, thymus... It'd likely increase lifespans dramatically. You could choose your height, build, gender... Once it's 20-30 years old and accepted tech, we'd probably even develop transgenic lines with fluorescent hair, increased endurance, magnetoreception, ... Cancer is hundreds of different molecular breakdowns of different cell types. Changes to adhesion, proliferation, signalling, etc. Lots of different problems. And if we "fix it", we're doing nothing to repair the genes of the cells that directly led to cancer. They'll still be sitting on the precipice of developing it again. Replace the body.

bequanna 5y ago
Growing the replacement body and getting general acceptance is probably channeling itself, but seems easy compared to connecting the “plumbing and wiring” from the head to the body. How close are we to doing this?
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Insanely far away if we never start. I think this eventuality is a little odd, but it is worth at least doing some meta-analysis to see if different parts of medicine would be the best to pursue. E.g. we currently focus a lot on palliative care, accepting that death is inevitable. We need to change that expectation if we're ever going to get life extension technology.
traverseda 5y ago
I don't think we can join nerves well enough at the moment. Seems like a problem we'd need to solve first.