COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could unlock the next revolution in cancer treatment - new research

[usonian]

https://theconversation.com/covid-19-mrna-vaccines-could-unlock-the-next-revolution-in-cancer-treatment-new-research-258992

The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives globally during the pandemic could help spark the immune system to fight cancer. This is the surprising takeaway of a new study that we and our colleagues published in the journal Nature.

While developing mRNA vaccines for patients with brain tumors in 2016, our team, led by pediatric oncologist Elias Sayour, discovered that mRNA can train immune systems to kill tumors – even if the mRNA is not related to cancer.

Based on this finding, we hypothesized that mRNA vaccines designed to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 might also have antitumor effects.

So we looked at clinical outcomes for more than 1,000 late-stage melanoma and lung cancer patients treated with a type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors. This treatment is a common approach doctors use to train the immune system to kill cancer. It does this by blocking a protein that tumor cells make to turn off immune cells, enabling the immune system to continue killing cancer.

Article in Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09655-y


Open access, pdf download available.

[travelingthrulife]

1. Such good news!

One of the silver linings of the pandemic, along with cleaner air for a couple months, was the very successful use of mRNA to deliver instructions to the immune cells. Trialing something like that for public use would have taken a lot longer without that global emergency.

[riversedge]

2. Hoping there are doctors or scientists who Will be FUNDED to continue reseach.