The most widely used COVID-19 vaccines may offer a surprise benefit for some cancer patients – revving up their immune systems to help fight tumors.
People with advanced lung or skin cancer who were taking certain immunotherapy drugs lived substantially longer if they also got a Pfizer or Moderna shot within 100 days of starting treatment, according to preliminary research from the University of Florida and MD Anderson Cancer Center, published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
And it had nothing to do with virus infections.
Instead, the messenger RNA (mRNA) that powers those vaccines appears to help the immune system respond better to cutting-edge cancer treatment.
“The vaccine acts like a siren to activate immune cells throughout the body,” said lead researcher Dr. Adam Grippin, who trained at UF’s Wells Center for Brain Tumor Therapy and now works at MD Anderson. “We’re sensitizing immune-resistant tumors to immune therapy.”
UF researchers have long been developing personalized mRNA “treatment vaccines” that train immune cells to spot unique features of a patient's tumor, and this new study suggests a broadly effective, off-the-shelf approach could also work.
The observation is a defining moment in more than a decade of UF-led research testing mRNA-based therapeutics designed to “wake up” the immune system against cancer. Building on a previous UF study, it also marks a significant step toward a long-awaited universal cancer vaccine to boost the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy.
“The implications are extraordinary — this could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care,” said Dr. Elias Sayour, a UF Health pediatric oncologist and McKnight Brain Institute researcher who co-authored the study. “We could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilize and reset the immune response, in a way that could essentially be a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients.”
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised skepticism about mRNA vaccines, cutting $500 million in funding for some uses of the technology.
But this research team found the results so promising that it is preparing a more rigorous study to see if mRNA coronavirus vaccines should be paired with cancer drugs called checkpoint inhibitors — treatments that remove a tumor’s ability to hide from the immune system.
The study highlights Sayour’s eight years of UF-led work developing mRNA-based therapeutics.
His team found that generating a strong antitumor response didn’t require targeting a specific tumor protein; instead, the immune system could be broadly activated, much like it would respond to a viral infection.
The next step is a large clinical trial through the UF-led OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Network, which connects hospitals, clinics, and health centers across Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, California, and Minnesota.
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“One of our main goals at OneFlorida is to take discoveries from the lab and bring them directly to the patients who need them,” said Betsy Shenkman, Ph.D., the consortium’s leader.
If the findings are confirmed, the researchers say it could open the door to an even more effective nonspecific, universal vaccine. For patients with advanced cancers, that could translate into a critical benefit: additional survival time.
“If we can even modestly improve outcomes — say 5 or 10%, or ideally double current results — that’s meaningful for patients, especially if the approach can be applied across multiple cancer types,” said Sayour.
WUSF's Rick Mayer contributed to this report.
