Anti-Cancer Vaccine Destroys Cancers in Mice

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    Scientists from Stanford announced the success of the initial phase of work on the creation of anti-cancer drugs. Their technology activates T-cells in mice, which allows them to destroy even hidden metastases. However, while talking about success can only be in respect of animals suffering from lymphoma. To activate T-cells, scientists injected animals with two active immune drugs, injecting them into tumors. As a result, even traces of cancerous tumors disappear in the body of mice, including metastases, which have got into important organs and are not amenable to treatment in the usual way.

    Scientists claim that their technology also works for other types of cancer, including those types that arise spontaneously. Researchers believe that even the introduction of a small amount of drugs developed by them into the body with cancer can cure many types of cancer.

    “When we use the two agents we create together, we see tumors disappear all over the body,” said Ronald Levy, a professor of oncology. "This achievement avoids the need to select specific drugs, and also does not require a change in the patient's stem cells."

    One of the agents has already been approved by the regulator, the second is currently being tested in a number of clinical trials. They started in January, and the main goal of such tests is to test the effectiveness of such drugs in the body of patients suffering from lymphoma.

    The results of their work, scientists have published in the medical publication Science Translational Medicine. Levi can be called a pioneer of cancer immunotherapy, because so far this method is not too widespread, although there are studies on this subject. This refers to biomedical technology aimed at activating the human immune system to fight cancer.

    Interestingly, individually agents have no effect on cancer. “Yes, these antibodies and molecules have no effect on cancer, but their combination has radically different properties. We believe that their combination is very effective in dealing with lymphoma, it can be assumed that it will be effective in treating other types of cancer, ”said Ron Levy.

    It is worth noting that over the past few years, molecular biologists and physicians close to this field have begun to understand the promise of immunotherapy. This method is very effective as az because the body itself cures itself - it needs only a small push, and it is performed by scientists using various antibodies, microorganisms and other “immunity activators”.

    In principle, the method itself cannot be called completely new, since at the moment there are several types of anti-cancer immunotherapy that have already been clinically tested and approved by the regulatory authorities of the United States and some other countries. Most of these methods are based on the use of synthetic antibodies that mark cancer cells, making them vulnerable to the immune system.

    The Levy method is based on the idea of ​​"training" immune cells using the tumor itself. To do this, scientists have found the possibility of introducing agents into the tumor, so that they begin to read the antigens that are present on the surface of the cancer cells.

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    Similar methods were developed earlier, but they were not very successful, since many cancer cells still remain invisible to antibodies. In addition, there were cases when agents interfered with the work of immunity, which led to the fact that the T-cells simply could not get close to the cancer cells. Levi and his colleagues considered that this problem could be solved using a specific combination of antibodies and so-called signaling molecules, which allow automatic activation of immune cells, causing them to attack cancerous tissues, while ignoring those signals that cancer cells give.

    It is clear that scientists began working not with mice, but with cultures of individual cells. As it turned out, the necessary treatment for cancer cells can be achieved by using antibodies that suppress the work of the OX40 signaling protein (namely, it causes T-cells not to start work) and a relatively small portion of DNA that stimulates the work of the TLR9 gene. This gene is responsible for the activation of the immune response of any type - even inborn, even acquired.

    When testing your idea in mice, it turned out that the tumors in animals were destroyed within 10 days. Moreover, initially the agents were injected only into a few tumors, but it turned out that those that were not affected were reduced. At the same time, the “vaccine against cancer” allowed protecting mice from the reappearance of new foci of breast cancer (animals are predisposed to this disease).

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