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Pancreatic Cancer Disappears in Mice After New mRNA Immunotherapy
Pancreatic tumors vanished in roughly half of mice given an experimental mRNA therapy and did not return for up to a year after treatment stopped. Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School developed an experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer that uses a cocktail of messenger RNAs (mRNA) to activate immune defenses, break through the protective tissue surrounding tumors, and help immune cells recognize cancer cells as threats. Inspired by work at the school’s RNA Therapeutics Institute and advances in COVID vaccines, the approach combines several immune signals and tumor-associated antigens in a single formulation. The study, published in Nature Communications, combined mRNAs encoding five immune cytokines with three tumor-associated antigens in one injectable treatment. Approximately 50 percent of mice with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma experienced complete tumor regression and remained disease-free for a year, including after therapy was discontinued. “It’s unheard of to get a response like this in these models of pancreatic cancer,” said Dr. Parikh, a recent PhD graduate from the Ruscetti Lab. “There have been a lot of drugs tried in the lab that have had good initial responses in mice, but ultimately the cancer always comes back. This is the only study I’ve seen that has achieved durable...
