For the first time, scientists have tested a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine in a patient with a deadly form of brain cancer — and it triggered a strong immune response.
The vaccine, which was described in a study published on May 1 in the journal Cell, was created by extracting genetic material called RNA from a tumor from a patient with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer. The RNA was then replicated to make a vaccine from mRNA, which is a blueprint for what is inside every cell, including tumor cells.
“These results represent an exciting advance in next generation cancer therapies that leverage mRNA, the same class of medicines used in the COVID-19 vaccines,” Owen Fenton, an assistant professor of pharmacoengineering and molecular pharmaceutics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.
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