Doctors have begun trialling the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine in patients, as experts hailed its “groundbreaking” potential to save thousands of lives.
Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.
Now experts are testing a new jab that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells – then prevents them ever coming back. Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.
The phase 1 clinical trial, the first human study of BNT116, has launched across 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.
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The jab uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers.
The aim is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.
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six consecutive injections five minutes apart over 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday.
Each jab contained different RNA strands. He will get the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.
Lee said: “We hope adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back because a lot of time for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it does come back.”
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Source: World-first lung cancer vaccine trials launched across seven countries | Lung cancer | The Guardian
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