(Reporter Wang Zhenya of People's Daily Health Client) On October 16, according to the British " Guardian ", Ugur Saxin, founder of German biotech company BioNTech, said that the mRNA cancer vaccine has hope to be released by 2030 and will cure cancer. In recent days, "If there is really such a vaccine, will you get it?" The topic of "cancer vaccine" has caused social discussion.
What is the cancer vaccine? Can a shot really prevent cancer? ...In this regard, the People's Daily Health Client interviewed the immunology expert Wang Yuge to answer questions and solve problems for everyone.
vaccination. Photo by Cao Zihao
People's Daily Health Client: What is a "cancer vaccine"?
Wang Yuge: The cancer vaccine has a general concept. It has vaccines to prevent cancer occurrence, such as hepatitis B vaccine to prevent liver cancer caused by hepatitis B virus, and tetravalent or nine-valent HPV vaccine is used to prevent high-risk HPV infection caused by cervical cancer , etc.
But the mRNA cancer vaccine developed by BioNTech is not the above-mentioned preventive vaccine. It mainly induces the body to produce cytotoxic T cells, and removes tumor cells with special tumor antigens, and is about to remove cells that already exist in the body. Therefore, it is called "therapeutic vaccine". The research on this therapeutic vaccine has been carried out in my country for a long time.
People's Daily Health Client: What is the basis for mRNA vaccine to treat cancer?
Wang Yuge: The vaccine must have the appropriate antigen when it works. For the antigen of cancer vaccine, the antigen needs to be expressed on cancer cells, not on normal cells.
cancer vaccine principle is cellular immunity, which is cellular immunity by inducing CD4, specific T cells, etc. Induce the body to produce specific T cells. The type of human leukocyte antigen expressed by the body itself. Due to individual differences, the same tumor cell mutation cannot be universal in different individuals. Therefore, the current mRNA vaccine application must be individualized. Therefore, for many years, cancer vaccines have been in the research and development stage and have not yet developed successful drugs.
People's Daily Health Client: If the cancer vaccine is approved for marketing, which cancer treatment is the first to be used for?
Wang Yuge: Theoretically, cancer vaccines do not depend on the tumor type, but on the expression of tumor antigen. The existing research is mainly conducted in melanoma, because there are many tumor mutations, and it is easy to find mutated neoantigens. Patients with melanoma may benefit first.
People's Daily Health Client: Can a cancer vaccine really be given to eliminate tumors?
Wang Yuge: actually plays a role similar to cancer vaccines for large tumors in the progressive stage, radiotherapy and chemotherapy kill tumor cells. is just like our body that requires multiple immunizations to produce protective antibodies, and such a shot of vaccine is basically impossible to clear the tumor. Currently, the clinical studies conducted are usually immune to tumor patients. mRNA COVID-19 vaccine technology can be used to help destroy cancer cells.
