Immunotherapy treatments are utilized to fight cancer by employing the patient’s own immune system. Methods include stimulating the immune system to work more efficiently and by boosting the immune system with man-made proteins. A new 3D vaccine may join current immunotherapy treatments as a highly effective treatment. The vaccine is injected into the body and then forms a 3D structure that may be able to fight not only cancer, but HIV and other diseases. Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University published their findings in Nature Biotechnology.
The injection contains mesoporous silica rods (MSRs), tiny rod-like structures that configure into a 3D structure. The spaces between the indivdual MSRs attract immune cells, while the MSRs themselves can be filled with a combination of drugs intended to treat a range of infections. The vaccine so far studied is aimed at cancer. In this particular vaccine, the MSRs assemble and immune cells are recruited (in this case, dendritic cells, which monitor the body and trigger an immune response when something wrong is detected). The drugs inside are then released, guiding the immune system to attack cancerous cells. Although the 3D vaccine has been tested solely in mice, the results are promising. One experiment resulted in a significant immune response when millions of dendritic cells gathered at the 3D structure then spread to lymph nodes.
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