New immunotherapy suggests quicker, more affordable individualized treatment
A new vaccine for several kinds of cancer was tested successfully on human blood samples and on live mice. Researchers report in Nature Communications on this latest potential breakthrough in precision medicine.
Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Uppsala University together developed a unique type of antibody that both targets and delivers a drug package via the antibody itself, while simultaneously activating the immune system for personalised immunotherapy treatments.
One of the study’s authors, KTH Professor Johan Rockberg, says the drug redirects the immune system to find and target specific mutations and gene changes, known as neoantigens, that are only found in cancer cells. The new antibody works by delivering the unique tumour-specific material directly to a particular type of immune cell and by stimulating this cell simultaneously.
The effect of this three-in-one approach is to greatly enhance the T-cell response to the tumour.
Rockberg says results show the method works in several ways. Not only does it activate the right type of immune cells in human blood samples, but animal models show that mice receiving the treatment had prolonged survival. At higher doses, the treatment saved the mice from cancer. The results showed the method is safer than previous cancer treatments the researchers have studied.
Customised precision medicines can be both costly and time-consuming to develop.
Rockberg says the advantage of the drug is that it is easy to produce on a larger scale, yet can be easily tailored to the patient’s disease or specific tumour. The medicine consists of two parts that are combined, a targeting bispecific antibody – which can be produced in large quantities in advance – and a custom small peptide part, which is produced rapidly synthetically on a small scale for a desired type of cancer.
“Both in terms of production cost, and the short time it takes to tailor a peptide for a new tumour, this should make it quicker and more affordable for patients to go from diagnosis to treatment,” Rockberg says.
The aim of the study was to establish a more flexible, faster and safer treatment for cancer than those currently available. The study has already shown that the method has the potential to be customised for each patient, thereby strengthening the immune system against cancer. The next step is to use the fully optimised production process to manufacture the drug candidate for further safety studies and then start clinical trials in humans.
David Callahan