A revolutionary new cancer treatment called mRNA therapy has been put on patients at Hammersmith Hospital in west London. The trial is designed to evaluate the therapy’s safety and effectiveness in treating melanoma, lung cancer and other solid tumors.
The new treatment uses genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, to work by presenting common markers of tumors to the patient’s immune system.
The goal is to help it recognize and fight cancer cells that express these markers.
“Novel cancer immunotherapies based on mRNA provide a way to recruit a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer,” said Dr. David Pinato of Imperial College London, a researcher on the UK arm of the trial.
Pinato said the research is still in its early stages and could take years before it becomes available to patients. However, this new trial is laying important groundwork to help develop new anti-cancer treatments that are less toxic and more precise. “We urgently need these to turn the tide on cancer,” he added.
Many cancer vaccines have recently entered clinical trials around the world. These therapies fall into two categories: personalized cancer immunotherapies, which rely on extracting a patient’s own genetic material from a tumor; therapeutic cancer immunotherapies, such as the new mRNA therapies launched in London, which are “off-the-shelf” and target specific Tailored to the type of cancer.
The main aim of the new trial, called Mobilize, is to discover whether this particular type of mRNA therapy is safe, tolerated by lung or skin cancer patients, and can shrink tumors. In some cases it will be given alone, while in others it will be given in combination with the existing cancer drug pembrolizumab.
The researchers say that while the experimental therapy is still in the early stages of testing, they hope that if the approach proves safe and effective, it could eventually lead to a new treatment option for hard-to-treat cancers.
Nearly one in two people in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. A range of therapies have been developed to treat patients, including chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
However, cancer cells can become resistant to drugs, making tumors more difficult to treat, and scientists are keen to find new ways to treat cancer.
Preclinical testing in cancer cells and animal models provides evidence that new mRNA therapies have effects on the immune system and could be given to patients in early-stage clinical trials.
