FAQ
Status: 02/04/2022 10:52 a.m
The corona pandemic has helped mRNA vaccines make a breakthrough. In fact, this technology was developed to treat cancer. Here, too, research is making progress.
How do mRNA vaccines work?
The principle of mRNA technology is simple: the vaccine contains messenger substances (messenger RNA) with the blueprint for a specific protein. During vaccination, these messenger substances penetrate the cells at the injection site, which then produce this protein for a while. The human immune system recognizes this protein as a foreign body, fights it and remembers it for the future.
How do mRNA vaccines work against cancer?
The vaccines against the coronavirus introduce the human body to this invader, more precisely to its spike protein, which gives it its crown-shaped appearance. This protects against infection and serious illness.
mRNA against cancer
Moritz Pompl, BR, morning magazine, February 4, 2022
In the case of cancer, on the other hand, the mRNA vaccines are not used to prevent but to treat a disease. Research into how mRNA technology can be used in cancer treatment has been going on for around 30 years. It aims to get the immune system to recognize and destroy malignant cells. However, cancer cells are very similar to healthy cells. Tumor cells can also camouflage themselves or slow down the immune system. Therefore, it is much more difficult to develop an mRNA vaccine against an endogenous cancer than a vaccine against an external attacker like the coronavirus.
How far is the research?
mRNA technology is already being tested on patients with different types of cancer. However, the number of study participants is still small. BioNTech, for example, is conducting a phase II study on the treatment of melanoma with an mRNA vaccine. This vaccine contains the blueprints for four different proteins. The cancer cells of 90 percent of all patients with melanoma produce at least one of these. However, in many types of cancer, there are many different forms of abnormal cells. This makes a common vaccine for several patients impossible.
SCIENCE: Stefan Fröhling, Director National Center for Tumor Diseases Heidelberg, on new cancer treatment methods
tagesschau24, 4.2.2022
However, mRNA technology can also be used to treat a single tumor. To do this, cancer cells are first removed from a patient and their genome compared with that of healthy cells. This makes it possible to find out where the cancer cell’s blueprint has errors and which incorrectly structured proteins they produce as a result. A customized vaccine then causes the immune system to recognize these proteins and thus react precisely to these malignant cells. Since mRNA can now be produced relatively easily and quickly in the laboratory, mRNA technology can also be financed in cancer treatment.
Has the corona pandemic advanced research?
Without the preliminary work from cancer research, the development of mRNA vaccines against the coronavirus would never have been possible in such a short time. Conversely, cancer research is now benefiting from the billions of mRNA vaccines that have been used. Large amounts of data on tolerability, vaccination reactions and side effects could be collected within a short period of time.
When could mRNA vaccines be used against cancer?
It is expected to be a few more years before cancer treatment using mRNA technology is used in practice. As a therapy, it will initially only be an option for individual types of cancer and then not alone, but in combination with other treatment methods. So mRNA technology will not become a panacea against cancer. However, it may help turn cancer from an often fatal disease into a chronic disease that patients can live with for many years.