Every single cancer is different, but cancer treatment often isn’t tailored. A “one-size-fits-all” approach still dominates. Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can work, but are also tough on patients. For many patients with advanced disease, the hardest part of their cancer experience is finding there are no more therapeutic options left. New individualised approaches that enable your own body to better fight cancer are desperately needed.
You might have heard about mRNA vaccines from COVID-19. These vaccines helped save lives by teaching the body how to recognise and fight a virus. Now, the Australian Personalised mRNA Cancer Immunotherapy Hub led by A/Prof. Seth Cheetham is using this same idea to tackle something even bigger: cancer.
Their research aims to create personalised cancer vaccines, treatments built for each individual patient. Every tumour has its own unique “fingerprint.” By reading that information, we can design a vaccine that trains your own immune system to recognise cancer cells and destroy them.
The approach is like giving your immune system a “most wanted” poster for cancer to create an army of immune cells to fight the disease. This approach is effective and avoids the harsh side effects of traditional therapies.
The team is working with scientists and doctors around the world to design personalised mRNA cancer vaccines, improve their effectiveness and increase the speed at which they can be made, ensuring they can reach patients quickly. In the future, they hope to treat cancers that are currently incurable and do so a way that’s kinder to patients.