New Nanoparticle Vaccine May Fight Multiple Cancers!

News Staff : Apr 25, 2017
UT Southwestern Medical Center

Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed a first-of-its-kind nanoparticle vaccine immunotherapy that targets several different cancer types.

(Dallas, TX)—The nanovaccine consists of tumor antigens—tumor proteins that can be recognized by the immune system—inside a synthetic polymer nanoparticle. Nanoparticle vaccines deliver minuscule particulates that stimulate the immune system to mount an immune response. The goal is to help people's own bodies fight cancer. (Photo: Laser light can be seen scattered by nanoparticles in a solution of the UTSW-developed nanovaccine/UT Southwestern)

"What is unique about our design is the simplicity of the single-polymer composition that can precisely deliver tumor antigens to immune cells while stimulating innate immunity. These actions result in safe and robust production of tumor-specific T cells that kill cancer cells," said Dr. Jinming Gao, a Professor of Pharmacology and Otolaryngology in UT Southwestern's Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.

A study outlining this research, published online in Nature Nanotechnology, reported that the nanovaccine had anti-tumor efficacy in multiple tumor types in mice.

The research was a collaboration between the laboratories of study senior authors Dr. Gao and Dr. Zhijian "James" Chen, Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Center for Inflammation Research. The Center was established in 2015 to study how the body senses infection and to develop approaches to exploit this knowledge to create new treatments for infection, immune disorders, and autoimmunity.

Typical vaccines require immune cells to pick up tumor antigens in a "depot system" and then travel to the lymphoid organs for T cell activation, Dr. Gao said. Instead, nanoparticle vaccines can travel directly to the body's lymph nodes to activate tumor-specific immune responses.

"For nanoparticle vaccines to work, they must deliver antigens to proper cellular compartments within specialized immune cells called antigen-presenting cells and stimulate innate immunity," said Dr. Chen, also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and holder of the George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science. "Our nanovaccine did all of those things."

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