The Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, awarded this morning by the Karolinska Institutet, goes to the discovery that allowed the development of mRNa vaccines against Covid-19. I am the one to receive it Katalin Karikoa professor at the University of Pennsylvania and who until last year was senior vice president of the BioNTech company, and Drew Weissmandirector of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovations, for their studies that have “changed our understanding of how messenger RNA interacts with the immune system […]thus contributing to the development of vaccines against one of the greatest threats to human health of our time.”
Intelligence and speed, this is how Karikó and Weissman opened the era of Covid vaccines by Donatella Zorzetto 02 October 2023
Therapeutic mRNA vaccines against cancer
But the implications do not only concern vaccines against viruses, on the contrary. This technology was initially developed specifically to develop therapeutic vaccines against tumors, as was recalled at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CICON23), an event dedicated to the new frontiers of cancer immunotherapy which was held in Milan, which he also participated in Jim AllisonNobel Prize winner in 2018 together with Tasuku Honjo for managing to unleash our immune system against melanomas.
Nobel Allison: “By working on the immune system we will defeat many tumors” by Deborah Ameri 21 October 2022
Over 40 trials underway
To date, there are at least 40 therapeutic mRNA vaccines for cancer being tested in the world, as was recalled during the congress. And, in particular, one of the vaccines against melanoma is already in phase 3, as he reported Jeffrey Weberprofessor of Oncology and deputy director of the NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, working on the vaccine from the Moderna company, while Özlem Türeci, co-founder of BioNTech, presented their platform. “We are in a moment of very rapid development of these vaccines, in which it is important to talk about what we expect from the near future, without creating illusions – he says Pier Francesco Ferrucci, director of Oncology of the Multimedica Group and president of the Italian Network for Tumor Biotherapy (NIBIT), one of the scientific societies organizing the event – Until now, few patients have been treated: the results are very promising, but the numbers are still too high low. On the one hand there is therefore great enthusiasm, but on the other we must wait for confirmation of more significant data.”
Freedom of research won with the Nobel for Karikó and Weissman by Elena Cattaneo 02 October 2023
According to Ferrucci, however, it is realistic that we could have a therapeutic mRNA vaccine against melanoma by 2030, if not earlier. And at that point the problem will arise of how these very sophisticated drugs can be distributed, since they must be personalized and developed to this for each patient.
Vaccines against cancer and heart attack: the revolution with mRNA by Tiziana Moriconi 11 April 2023
Personalized vaccines
In fact, one of the weak points of immunotherapy has always been the tumor’s ability to hide from the immune system. There are tumors that are more immunogenic (which easily develop an immune system reaction) and others that are less. “With mRNA technology this problem should be overcome, because it is possible to identify proteins (neoantigens, ed.) characteristic of the tumor in each patient and to develop a personalized vaccine capable of stimulating a targeted immune system response against them “. Melanoma is one of the first tumors against which these vaccines are tested for two reasons: firstly because before the arrival of immunotherapy there were no effective therapies, secondly because it presents a high quantity of mutations that can be recognized by the immune system, and is therefore particularly immunogenic. But ongoing studies also involve patients with prostate cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, colorectal cancer and other solid tumors.
From a vaccine to mRna hopes for pancreatic cancer by Anna Lisa Bonfranceschi 10 May 2023
The phase 3 study for melanoma
“Weber reported that the phase 3 study has for now started in Australia, the USA and other centers in Europe, and should soon also involve some Italian hospitals – concludes Ferrucci – In this regard it must be said that, in the face of research of the highest quality in our country, the economic possibility of moving from the laboratory to the clinic is often lacking. These are important investments, which today only a multinational company can take on. We should instead look for alternative financing models that allow us to put common health back at the center of our objectives”.
Melanoma, the first data on the combination of the mRNA vaccine and immunotherapy are positive by Tiziana Moriconi 16 April 2023