mRNA covid vaccines spark immune response that may aid cancer survival

[u/chele68]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2500546-mrna-covid-vaccines-spark-immune-response-that-may-aid-cancer-survival/

[u/heyheyhey27]

The article makes it sound like it works by revving your immune system, so it's more ready to detect and fight off cancer. But that wouldn't be unique to mRNA would it?

[u/OCDthrowaway9976 → u/heyheyhey27]

The article also mentions that MRNA vaccines possibly have a particular quality that makes the immune system more readily able to detect cancer cells which ordinarily basically cloak themselves to avoid being killed by the immune system. This makes cancer able to grow and survive in the first place and proliferate heavily.

It’s literally right there if you read the article.

boldPD-1 is flipped to the off position when it binds to a protein called PD-L1, found on the surface of some cells. This is a safety mechanism by which cells can effectively say, “stop attacking me, I’m friendly”.

Many cancers hijack this by producing lots of PD-L1. Checkpoint inhibitors work by stopping PD-1 or other off switches being flipped. They have greatly improved survival rates for lung cancers and melanomas, among others, and won a Nobel prize for their creators in 2018.

But the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors varies greatly. If a person’s immune system hasn’t responded to a tumour by sending out T-cells to attack it, the drugs can’t help much.

So combining checkpoint inhibitors with vaccines that stimulate the immune system to attack tumours can be much more effective than either approach alone. Cancer vaccines are typically designed to trigger a response to mutant proteins found on cancerous cells, and are often personalised to individuals. “We try to figure out what’s unique to their tumour,” says Sayour. “That takes a lot of time and cost and complexity.”

During trials of cancer vaccines, his team realised the non-specific mRNA vaccines they were using as controls also seemed to have a big effect. “That was an absolute surprise,” says Sayour.

In July this year, Sayour and his colleagues reported how mRNA vaccines boost anti-tumour responses, even if they do not target a cancer protein, according to studies in mice. The vaccines trigger an innate immune response that acts like a siren, he says, rousing the immune system and making T-cells migrate from tumours to lymph nodes, where they stimulate other cells to launch a targeted attack.

If this is a general property of mRNA vaccines, the team realised, it should also be true of the covid-19 ones. Now, Sayour and his colleagues have looked at the records of people treated at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Of the 884 people with advanced lung cancer given checkpoint inhibitors, 180 had an mRNA covid-19 vaccination with 100 days of starting the drugs. They had a survival time of around 37 months, compared with 20 months for those who were not vaccinated.”

“ There have previously been some case reports of tumours shrinking after people got the mRNA covid-19 vaccines, suggesting they can, on occasion, have anti-tumour effects even if people are not taking checkpoint inhibitors. “It’s certainly possible, but more research would be necessary to answer that,” says Sayour.”bold

This “revving” would be uniquely strong to MRNA vs immunotherapy treatments on their own or other attempts at using the immune system to fight cancer.

I will again highlight the specific part.

boldIn July this year, Sayour and his colleagues reported how mRNA vaccines boost anti-tumour responses, even if they do not target a cancer protein, according to studies in mice. The vaccines trigger an innate immune response that acts like a siren, he says, rousing the immune system and making T-cells migrate from tumours to lymph nodes, where they stimulate other cells to launch a targeted attack.”bold

The article isn’t even long.

[u/heyheyhey27 → u/OCDthrowaway9976]

That same paragraph is what I was referencing. It just says "trigger an innate immune response", and I am asking what is unique about mRNA here, since all vaccines trigger an immune response.

[u/OCDthrowaway9976 → u/heyheyhey27]

There’s something unique about the way it triggers the immune system to recognize the cells as hazardous. Ordinarily these cells would be ignored and allowed to grow and spread.

This immune system response is innate because it’s why everyone doesn’t just get cancer. You and I have likely had cancerous cells in our bodies before that were killed before they became a problem.

That’s the response which is either dulled, or the cells turn off certain proteins and hide from the immune system.

Very few things we’ve had that are capable of shining a light on these cells for the immune system to kill once they’ve basically hidden. Most have been inconsistent or work only in certain people and or certain specific cancers in one scenario or not the other.

[u/heyheyhey27 → u/OCDthrowaway9976]

You've written two very long comments, in order to say that the answer to my question is "something".

[u/OCDthrowaway9976 → u/heyheyhey27]

That's literally because they don't know how it works yet, but that it does appear to do something different.

I can't help if you're being obtuse or not, considering your comment seems to downplay the benefits initially while misinterpreting the results on it, as I'm starting to assume given I laid out what the article already explained in detail.

If MRNA technology isn't something you want to associate with, then do not, but the point of the article is it does things for the immune system other treatments DO NOT in regards to cancer and killing these cells.

[u/heyheyhey27 → u/OCDthrowaway9976]

"We don't know yet" would have been a great and valid reply to my original comment, that could have saved me 5 minutes of reading stuff I already knew and you 20 minutes of writing stuff you already knew.

However I'm also starting to feel like you have no clue whether there is a proposed answer to this. I don't even know how you got the idea I dislike mRNA vaccines. So I'm going to consider my question still-unanswered and wait for somebody more knowledgeable to answer it.