New Era in Cancer Treatment Arising With the Use of Nanobiologic Immunotherapy

A new type of immunotherapy for cancer has been developed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, according to a study published in the journal Cell in October 2020. The research team have used tiny materials bioengineered from natural molecules called ‘nanobiologics’ which can be paired with a therapeutic drug and once injected these molecules can train the immune system to help eliminate the tumor cells.

Under normal conditions, the cancer cell protects itself from the immune system with the help of immune cells that stop them being attacked. The nanobiologic immunotherapy activates a process called trained immunity by targeting the bone marrow, where the part of immune system is formed, and reprograms the bone marrow progenitor cells to produce ‘trained’ innate immune cells that stop the growth of cancer.

This research for the first time has shown that trained immunity can be safely and successfully induced for the treatment of cancer. Initially, the research was first performed in animal models like mouse model with melanoma and it is currently being developed for clinical testing.

There are some immunotherapies available which are already a part of the standard cancer care, an example of which is the drug that eliminated President Jimmy Carter’s metastatic melanoma. The drug used called checkpoint inhibitor is beneficial only in a small number of patients and it also has severe side effects. Although these therapies are able to unmask cancer to the immune system, they do have certain limitations.

The scientists have said that the findings from this research has shown that the nanobiologic immunotherapy’s trained immunity approach has potentially fewer adverse reactions and can be used as stand- alone anticancer therapy or it can be used in conjunction with checkpoint inhibitor drugs.

Lead author Willem J. Mulder, PhD, Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology and member of the Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai says “We observed very strong anti-cancer effects of our nanobiologic immunotherapy. The work involves the development and preclinical evaluation of a novel immunotherapy based oh highly biocompatible nanomaterials called nanobiologics. Our study is a significant advancement for both trained immunity and cancer treatment, with real potential to move quickly into use in patients.”

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The research was part of a large collaboration between multiple institutes and universities in the United States and Europe and the Icahn School of medicine. DrZahi A. Fayad PhD said “This study is a game changer in the field of immunotherapy. Director of the Biomedical Engineering and imaging Institute said “We are continuing the exploration of the Technology at Mount Sinai and with our international Collaborators.”

Source-Medindia