Florian Greten is a little bothered by the fact that everyone thinks of Biontech first when talking about immunotherapy against cancer. Many researchers, companies and clinics are working on treatments that fight tumors with modified weapons from the body’s own defense arsenal. The mRNA method, on which the corona vaccination developed by Biontech is based, is just one of the processes that promise new successes in the fight against malignant cells.
However, the doctor Greten recognizes the services of the Mainz company without envy. “I’m thrilled,” said the spokesman for the Frankfurt Cancer Institute on Monday evening in the “Science in Dialogue” series, which is organized by the Polytechnic Society, the Kunstgewerbeverein and the FAZ-Advantage World.
Greten, director of the Georg-Speyer-Haus chemotherapeutic research institute, finds the interim results that Biontech recently presented on its combination of CAR-T cell and mRNA therapy encouraging: with optimal dosage, cancer growth could be stopped in 95 percent of cases , and in 59 percent the tumor even became smaller. Before the treatment can be approved, it must be tested on a larger number of patients – Greten also points out this.
Successes with black skin cancer and leukemia
In an interview with FAZ editor Sascha Zoske, the Goethe University professor gives an overview of the variety of immunotherapies against cancer that are now in use. The first active ingredients to be tested include the so-called checkpoint inhibitors: These are molecules that release certain brakes on the body’s own defense system so that it can better attack the tumor.
Sascha Zoske Published/Updated: Recommendations: 45 A comment from Sascha Zoske Published/Updated: Recommendations: 24 Dr. med. Holger Bartz Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1
These medications are effective, among other things, in black skin cancer. CAR T-cell therapies, in turn, rely on modified immune cells that are equipped with specific receptors to recognize and attack cancer cells. Such treatment approaches are currently used primarily for leukemia and lymphoma, as Greten explains.
The mRNA therapy, in turn, is based on analyzes of the tumor-specific genetic material. DNA sequences that encode proteins that are particularly characteristic of the tumor are translated into messenger RNA that is injected into the patient. In the body, the tumor proteins are produced using this template, which the immune system then uses to train how to fight the cancer – just as it learns to fight the coronavirus after the mRNA vaccination with information about SARS-CoV2 proteins.
Greten believes Biontech boss Ugur Sahin’s estimate that the first new cancer drugs from his company could be approved from 2026 is quite realistic. If the therapies prove successful in practice, cancer could in many cases become a chronic disease that people can live with for a long time. However, it cannot be expected that every tumor can be cured. It is important that doctors move away from standard treatment regimens and address the individual characteristics of each disease.