This Looks Like Rather Good News On The Cancer Front!

This encouraging report appeared a few days ago.
Australian researchers unlock the secret to a future cancer vaccine

Exclusive

By Natasha Robinson

Health Editor

3:00AM February 15, 2024

Australian researchers have unlocked a crucial key to future ­cancer vaccines in a world-first discovery set to fast-track RNA-based therapeutics.

Vaccine technology took a giant leap forward with the advent of Covid-19, when mRNA vaccines proved successful and were administered to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

But while mRNA vaccines are effective at inducing an immune response in viral disease, the technology has major challenges in its application for other diseases such as cancer, because the genetic ­material is breaks down quickly in the body and is therefore difficult to apply to other diseases.

Now scientists at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne have made a major discovery in the study of another, more robust form of RNA that could underpin the next generation of RNA-based therapeutics.

They studied a type of genetic material called circular RNA (circRNA), and discovered for the first time exactly how this compound is actively transported out of the nucleus of cells to their site of action in the body of the cell.

The discovery means that scientists will now be able to progress with harnessing circRNA in vaccines and other injectable drugs to fight cancer and other diseases.

“It’s the linear shape of mRNA that makes it relatively unstable and lack durability inside the body and this has been a limiting factor in the potential application of RNA-based therapeutics for diseases such as cancer,” explains Dr Vi Wickramasinghe, senior author on a scientific paper reporting the discovery published on Thursday in the journal Nature.

“For this reason, there’s a rising interest and excitement about another more robust form of RNA – known as circular or circRNA – which has the shape of a closed loop of genetic material, making it much more durable. However, key features of how circRNA operates within cells has remained a mystery – until now.

“Our discovery shows that these circular RNAs, which are actually made in the nucleus, they actually function in the cell’s cytoplasm,” Dr Wickramasinghe said. “Essentially, we discovered this pathway of how they get exported, or how they move from the nucleus to the cytoplasm to perform their functions. And the reason that’s important is because knowing these pathways, we can then use that information to help make the next generation of these RNA therapeutics more efficient.”

The scientists’ discovery that circRNAs are transported out of the cell in a similar way to some proteins, rather than in the same way as other types of RNA, sheds light on a mystery that many scientists around the world had been trying to unlock. There has been much scientific interest in circRNAs, particularly since the Covid vaccine revolution, but exactly how they functioned in the body has been little understood and scientifically contentious.

“This further cements evidence these circular RNAs … are made to carry out important functions in the cell – a contention that has been unclear for most of the circular RNAs discovered to date,” Dr Wickramasinghe said.

“Now this molecular mechanism is worked out, it opens up possibilities for manipulating it for beneficial outcomes such as disease therapies.”

Dr Wickramasinghe said it was now becoming clear that mRNA vaccines were “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of the potential of gene-based therapies.

“We will look back on this in 10 years and say, ‘these RNA therapeutics have transformed medicine’, that’s how impactful it is.”

Australia has moved to set up manufacturing and research facilities to support the development of mRNA therapeutics since the pandemic, and the circRNA discovery cements the Peter MacCallum Centre as a leader in the devel­opment of RNA therapeutics.

More here:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/australian-researchers-unlock-the-secret-to-a-future-cancer-vaccine/news-story/ca3be130e1f68163aaf2489d415aff11

It is really good to see the promise of RNA being realised and making it slowly to the clinic and into people’s arms! One can only hope there is lots of promise and little hype in the report!

David.