mRNA cancer vaccine shows protection at 5-year follow-up, Moderna and Merck say
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ColdWetDog
Ars Legatus Legionis
Remember this is really personalized medicine. Your doctor can't just prescribe it, they have to make it. It is still important since melanoma has been so treatment resistant but I really don't think of this as a 'vaccine' since you aren't preventing the disease - just its recurrence, so OK, I get it. But.
I'm not sure why Moderna and Merck are using the 'V' word since it is so politically charged these days. It is really more of a classic immunotherapy - mess with the immune system and try to get it to not do something or have it do something better.
I'm not sure why Moderna and Merck are using the 'V' word since it is so politically charged these days. It is really more of a classic immunotherapy - mess with the immune system and try to get it to not do something or have it do something better.
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The crisis we're in at the moment. I wouldn't put it past Kennedy to try and block further trials for this vaccine.
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Plenty of vaccines which are given after infection, say rabies, as post-infection prophylaxis along with antibodies, prevent the infection from spreading/killing the host (The antibodies take a first whack and then the vaccine primes the immune system to mop up, otherwise the infection kills you before the natural immunity gets revved up). It can also be given to prevent infection at all (like your dog's annual rabies vaccine) so the term is fluid.
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So in the "best" case, the billionaires will have it customised to them, while the rest of us gets a RFK jr. screwworm treatment...
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This is amazing, an effective treatment for a complex issue with minimal chance of side effects is very rare.
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With the administration's new found interest in Star Trek I could just see them banning the treatment because they are so confused between fake and real science.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708723/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708723/
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I suppose it enhances Keytruda - because t-cells wouldn't attack the melanoma with the vaccine alone.
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Unlike money, technology does tend to “trickle down.” It may take a while, but I expect that eventually the whole system will be automated until there is a machine that you put a biopsy sample in and it spits out your tailored cancer vaccine for no more money, or possibly even less, than existing cancer treatments.
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Here in Australia, I bet the trials would be welcomed. Melanoma is the 3rd most common cancer type here.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/cancer/cancer-data-in-australia/contents/rankings
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Hmm, unclear. My assumption was that they were given Keytruda because it would be unethical to do nothing but give the test subjects a placebo when there's a knows safe and effective treatment for skin cancer.
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Yes and yes. Standard of care is always the baseline, but the checkpoint inhibitor is thought to significantly enhance the anti-neoantigen effect.
When they start testing these on cancers where keytruda isn't standard of care (e.g. pancreatic adenocarcinoma) I suspect they'll add it as a combination treatment as soon as possible.
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Running a trial where you don’t give the person standard of care (in this case Keytruda) is a very high bar to get the trial approved. Much simpler to just run the trial with the standard of care. I’m not sure if Keytruda is standard of care for all patients in the trial or not (I know much more about research than the clinical treatment side and I know some of keytruda’s approvals are based on PDL1 testing status).
But they also probably wouldn’t want to since the mechanism of action in theory is complementary so even if keytruda isn’t standard of care odds are pretty good they would still want to run them together (maybe… see next paragraph which contradicts that a bit).
Of note in the scientific info released thus far there actually are some indications that the mRNA vaccine’s efficacy may be independent of keytruda’s as in a patient’s response to keytruda may not be indicative if the patient responds to keytruda + the mrna vaccine. It will be interesting to see what the larger phase 3 trial ends up showing in the end though I’m doubtful it will ever be given without some sort of PDL1 inhibitor unless strong evidence is found that the PDL1 inhibitor won’t give any efficacy.
As for the person asking why call it a vaccine? Well you can play whatever games you want, but it by definition is a vaccine. In this case a therapeutic vaccine vs. the typical prophylactic vaccine. That said Moderna does call it INT (Individualized Neoantigen Therapies) likely to try to get away a bit from it being a vaccine given the current admin’s complaints about it. All scientific talk though really needs to call it a vaccine given that is what it is..
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It may take a while to "trickle down" to non super rich people, but hopefully it will eventually. In the meantime, I'm setting up a family medical trust to cover family members when their health insurance doesn't cover such "exotic" treatments. My oldest brother died of lung cancer and his company's health insurance wouldn't cover Keytruda or any of the then new drugs. The medical trust will cover the "excess" costs. His passing inspired my medical trust plan. I miss my brother. Maybe someday we'll get a universal health insurance for the commoners. Hopefully I won't have to dip into the trust for myself.
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It could have the impact of making it less politically charged. There are few words that are more emotionally charged than "cancer", something that fights it with minimal side effects might start bringing a few people back around. Hopefully though it's just the best name, and marketing/politics wasn't included in the decision making.
Although maybe I'm letting the optimist in me out of the basement it's been trapped in the past few years.
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One question on this study is whether it is the vaccine that is producing the effect or mRNA in general. See:
SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade
This group is currently setting up a Phase III trial to test this theory in a prospective setting. The theory is that the mRNA itself (regardless of origin) produces the efficacy, as the immune system really doesn't like foreign mRNA floating around.
SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade
This group is currently setting up a Phase III trial to test this theory in a prospective setting. The theory is that the mRNA itself (regardless of origin) produces the efficacy, as the immune system really doesn't like foreign mRNA floating around.
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Very frustrating. All the covid19 vaccine data showed terrific titer data, and the right wing lied about it for political gain. Now they lie about all vaccines. Few things should be more unifying than fighting cancer, but a quick glance at fb will show more idiocy than Ibcan comprehend.
Thanks Moderna for the great work.
Thanks Moderna for the great work.
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It really is. My grandmother used to routinely get skin cancers burnt off her face & other sun-facing skin. I would be the same if I were not protected by my machine-room tan.
(Edited for dumb typo)
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Wow. This an absolutely fascinating idea. If I'm reading this correctly, the hypothesis is that foreign mRNA alerts the immune system in general, besides the intended effect of sensitising it to the intended target?
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Whack. I’m still waiting to be magnetized and get better cell reception since my jab.
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wait until they announce their next product - Space Laser Therapeutics…
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Yes, I think that it is a corporate way of fighting back against the "vaccines are bad" idiocy.
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Maybe. I'd assume that as the tech develops there's going to be common patterns that can be targeted, at least for the most common cancer types. We might not be able to have the same rate of effectiveness compared to bespoke solutions, but there could be something that have the efficacy of, say, the flu vaccine where we guard against the most common afflictions even if the vaccines can't take care of everything.
The bigger question in my mind is what happens next when we've cured those things. A lot of the reason why cancer is more common today is that people are outliving other diseases that would previously have killed them much earlier. Take cancer out of the equation, and you end up with more people suffering other illnesses associated with ageing, such as arthritis and dementia. There's then the financial aspect, where social systems are already straining due to an ageing population and lower birth rates, so more old people and less young workers to support them. Less people dying of cancer means more elderly people who can't effectively work to support themselves.
So, this overall is fantastic news about taking slow, painful deaths out of the equation and putting a dent in the fraudulent woo markets that prey on those suffering. But, it won't solve all problems, and we'd need to be ready for the new ones.
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There is also a paper on lipid nanoparticles (which encapsulate modern mRNA vaccines) and the mRNA itself being involved as adjuvants in stimulating several different immune responses.
Derek Lowe has the rundown:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/mrna-vaccines-what-s-adjuvant
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Particularly since we currently have multiple very malignant forms of that in the US government.
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I sympathize with you. We got every COVID-19 vaccine and booster, but still zero magnetic abilities, not even when tested with plastic* spoons. Very frustrating!
*Which, oddly enough, also serves as an efficacious intelligence test.
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Followed by Hurricane Gun enemas. Nuke it all from space, it is the only way to be sure.
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Yea just remove the vaccine word from it. When Kennedy asks if this is a vaccine, just say “no”.
It’s so dumb it may just work.
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I only have one thing to say about that: I've been climbing indoor for more than 30 years and I used to be pretty average during most of that time. However, that changed ever since I got those COVID-19 vaccines. My climbing skills have improved from an exceptional 5C to a regular 7a!
When I told this one to my doctor, he first started rolling with his eyes ("Didn't expect him to be one of those guys...") until he got the joke.
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Regarding the discussion over calling it a vaccine - broadly speaking, there are two types of vaccines: prophylactic (ie, preventative vaccines, the kind most people think of) and therapeutic (ie, treatment vaccines, given when you already have the disease).
Vaccines themselves aren't defined by when they are taken, though, they're defined by how they work, and therapeutic cancer vaccines, like the more well-known prophylactic vaccines, work by helping the immune system recognize/attack targets.
This is much harder to do with cancer, of course, since cancer cells look much less foreign to our immune systems than do the bacteria/viruses targeted by most prophylactic vaccines, which is a large reason why there are so few of them. But there are some - preventative cancer vaccines exist against HPV, HBV (hepatitis B, but given to help prevent development of HBV-related liver cancer), among others, and therapeutic cancer vaccines exist for metastatic prostate and bladder, for example.
Also, every individual's cancer is in some sense unique with its own particular distinguishing antigens, which adds to the difficulty of creating therapeutic cancer vaccines (as they are very specifically targeted) and is why you see them often referred to as a form of "personalized" or "precision" medicine.
(edited to fix typos as I noticed them)
Vaccines themselves aren't defined by when they are taken, though, they're defined by how they work, and therapeutic cancer vaccines, like the more well-known prophylactic vaccines, work by helping the immune system recognize/attack targets.
This is much harder to do with cancer, of course, since cancer cells look much less foreign to our immune systems than do the bacteria/viruses targeted by most prophylactic vaccines, which is a large reason why there are so few of them. But there are some - preventative cancer vaccines exist against HPV, HBV (hepatitis B, but given to help prevent development of HBV-related liver cancer), among others, and therapeutic cancer vaccines exist for metastatic prostate and bladder, for example.
Also, every individual's cancer is in some sense unique with its own particular distinguishing antigens, which adds to the difficulty of creating therapeutic cancer vaccines (as they are very specifically targeted) and is why you see them often referred to as a form of "personalized" or "precision" medicine.
(edited to fix typos as I noticed them)
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This ought to be a great step forward for US medicine, but it's likely to be quashed by a man, RFK Jr, with a literal brain worm. That just means that Americans won't be able to benefit from this - the work will proceed elsewhere.
Cory Doctorow talks a lot about how savage US IP restrictions prevent people all over the world from being able to use their computers properly. John Deere can brick your expensive tractor any time it wants, and did in Ukraine. The same goes for US biomedical IP. It used to be that other countries went along with the US because it could retaliate with trade tariffs. That's not a viable threat any more. These kind of advances can be copied by others and there's little that Moderna can do about it. The Trump administration is also already cutting off grants for further research and preventing researchers from traveling. They are incentivizing Moderna to move.
Cory Doctorow talks a lot about how savage US IP restrictions prevent people all over the world from being able to use their computers properly. John Deere can brick your expensive tractor any time it wants, and did in Ukraine. The same goes for US biomedical IP. It used to be that other countries went along with the US because it could retaliate with trade tariffs. That's not a viable threat any more. These kind of advances can be copied by others and there's little that Moderna can do about it. The Trump administration is also already cutting off grants for further research and preventing researchers from traveling. They are incentivizing Moderna to move.
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Can someone distract worm-brain boy so he doesn't hear about this, please?
While it wouldn't help me probably (being in the US), can all the bright scientists please move somewhere rational and continue their work so we can keep advancing medicine as a species? I'm sure Canada and Europe can make some enticing offers considering how research has been gutted.
While it wouldn't help me probably (being in the US), can all the bright scientists please move somewhere rational and continue their work so we can keep advancing medicine as a species? I'm sure Canada and Europe can make some enticing offers considering how research has been gutted.
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