The Belcher and Hammond Labs recently engineered a therapeutic cancer vaccine that could potentially make immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies effective for more patients. By stimulating the STING pathway, the vaccine eliminated 70%-100% of solid tumors and prevented recurrence with minimal side effects in preclinical studies of mouse melanoma and colon cancer models. Notably, the vaccine also showed promise in overcoming an immunodeficiency affecting 20% of the human population. Researchers hope the vaccine, Advanced Healthcare Materials, will make ICB therapies more effective and more broadly, viable for patients with loss-of-function STING mutations.
This study was supported in part by the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program and the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine.