Will the mRNA cancer vaccine be available by the end of the year?
A breakthrough personalized cancer vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute could receive regulatory approval as early as this summer, potentially allowing patients to begin treatment in September, institute director Alexander Gintsburg told RIA Novosti.
"According to the roadmap we submitted to the Ministry of Health, although it has not yet been officially approved, we may receive permission by the end of August so that we can begin treating people in September," Gintsburg told the news agency.
The Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology previously developed Sputnik V, the world's first registered Covid-19 vaccine. In 2022, the center applied mRNA technology, the basis for other Covid vaccines, to develop a new cancer treatment drug.
In an interview with RT last month, Director Gamaleya explained that the new drug is a therapeutic vaccine designed to be injected into people who have already been diagnosed with cancer. It causes the patient's immune system to begin destroying malignant cells. This injection allows cytotoxic lymphocytes, or white blood cells, present in the body of the vaccinated person to recognize foreign proteins (antigens) on the surface of tumor cells. The cytotoxic lymphocytes then find the foreign metastatic cells and destroy them throughout the body.
In a statement to RIA, Gintsburg noted that, although several cancer treatments are currently under development in Russia, the Gamaleya vaccine will be tailored to each patient and developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Gintsburg specified that AI will be used to analyze tumor parameters and provide a "blueprint" for the drug, which experts will then use to create a customized vaccine within approximately one week.
Gintsburg stated that while this vaccine is intended for patients diagnosed with primary melanoma, it can also be administered to those who have undergone certain stages of treatment.
Gintsburg previously noted that the vaccine had been effective in treating mice in an animal model of melanoma, and that up to seven human patients had undergone the treatment.
The Gamaleya Center is also currently developing models to treat other cancers, including pancreatic, kidney, and non-small cell lung cancer, which are arguably the most frequently diagnosed cancers with the highest mortality rates and are notoriously difficult to treat, according to Gintsburg.
In 2023, the Russian Ministry of Health reported 4 million cancer patients in the country. Andrey Kaprin, Director of the National Research Center for Radiology under the Ministry of Health, estimates that approximately 625,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed annually in Russia, with the incidence rate expected to increase by 2030.
