Miguel Bronchud, Co-Founder and Advisory Board at Regenerative Medicine Solutions, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“On mRNA cancer vaccines (not for prevention but for treatment purposes)- we are into unexplored areas and even regarding the conventional treatments for triple negative breast cancers – that do not respond to anti estrogens or to anti HER-2 antibodies- some oncology standard protocols still disagree regarding what are the best chemotherapy options for these TNBC patients, or how exactly to fit the vaccines or immune new treatments into the exact treatment sequence.
In the German BioNTech study, in the peripheral blood of nearly all patients, high-magnitude, vaccine-induced, mostly de novo T cell responses to multiple neoantigens were detected that remained functional for several years.
Characterization of individual patients revealed that a large proportion of these T cells developed into two subsets: a late-differentiated phenotype with markers indicative of ‘ready-to-act’ cytotoxic effector T cells, and T cells with a stem cell-like memory phenotype.
Eleven patients remained relapse-free for up to six years post-vaccination.
Recurrence occurred in three patients:
- the individual with the weakest vaccine-induced T cell response relapsed, but achieved complete remission on subsequent anti-PD-1 therapy;
- another patient had a tumour with low major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I expression with MHC class I-deficient cells growing out under vaccination;
- and the third patient was BRCA-positive and had a recurrence from a genetically distinct primary tumour. These findings demonstrate the “”feasibility of individualized RNA vaccines in TNBC”, document persistence of vaccine-induced, functional neoantigen-specific T cells and provide insights into possible immune escape mechanisms that will guide future approaches.
But these low numbers of patients (n) are insufficient to offer any meaningful guidance on safety and efficacy. However they support the proof of principle and important potential. More research and information are welcomed.”
Title: Individualized mRNA vaccines evoke durable T cell immunity in adjuvant TNBC
Authors: U. Sahin, M. Schmidt, E. Derhovanessian, A. Cortini, I. Vogler, T. Omokoko, E. Godehardt, S. Attig, S. Newrzela, J. Grützner, N. Bidmon, S. Bolte, S. Brachtendorf, T. Stuhlmann, D. Langer, D. Brüne, J. Blake, A. Feldner, H. Lindman, A. Schneeweiss, M. Eichbaum, Ö. Türeci
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