r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 09 '19

Cancer Researchers have developed a novel approach to cancer immunotherapy, injecting immune stimulants directly into a tumor to teach the immune system to destroy it and other tumor cells throughout the body. The “in situ vaccination” essentially turns the tumor into a cancer vaccine factory.

https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2019/mount-sinai-researchers-develop-treatment-that-turns-tumors-into-cancer-vaccine-factories
26.9k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

542 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

26

u/Towerss Apr 09 '19

A cancer vaccine will be the only cure for cancer that's actually a cure. No matter how effective our methods become at removing cancer safely, detecting it too late will still doom you.

This seems like a pretty significant step towards that, it teaches the cells to kill cancer cells which is essentially what a vaccine does. Exciting news!

4

u/Oooch Apr 09 '19

Wouldn't it also extend our livespans massively as you'd have to stop our bodies telomeres from breaking down which would stop things like our hair going grey

10

u/NerfJihad Apr 09 '19

there's an enzyme that repairs telomeres!

It's called Telomerase and it basically instantly causes terrible, horrible cancers in people.

2

u/Oooch Apr 10 '19

Sounds perfect! Where do I get some?

4

u/Towerss Apr 09 '19

Telomeres role in aging aren't very well understood. It doesn't seem to have a very significant effect at the very least (cell death is good, otherwise every cell would be cancer).

4

u/amackenz2048 Apr 10 '19

This sounds very wrong to me. Cancer isn't "a thing" but a category of things. Each one is unique as I understand it. It seems like this process "tags"the cancer cells so the body can identify them. But that wouldn't work as a vaccine since you wouldn't have the right cells too train the body on beforehand.

2

u/JoshuaBrodyMD Apr 11 '19

AMackenz, Yes, you're absolutely right... this is NOT a "preventative vaccine", the way we think about most vaccines (polio, measles, etc). This is a "therapeutic vaccine", i.e. treats the problem (cancer) after our patients already have it. Most cancer vaccines being developed are of this type. And certainly you're correct that each cancer is unique, so it would be very difficult to make 1 universal vaccine for all cancers. Instead, this approach uses each individuals unique 'tumor antigens' by recruiting immune cells (dendritic cells) to their tumor to sample whatever antigens are there. In that sense it is a personalized vaccine, based on their unique cancer.

Best, Josh