In a big breakthrough, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed powerful nanodiscs that can deliver a customized therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of cancerous tumors.
This new technology makes use of extremely small nano-sized discs (only about 10 nanometers) to teach the body to attack cancer cells.
These nanodiscs are made up of high-density synthetic lipoproteins and are loaded with tumor neoantigens. These neoantigens are tumor specific mutations which teach the immune system’s T-cells to target each neoantigen and kill them. This helps in preventing tumor growth.
As per James Moon, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, “We are basically educating the immune system with these nanodiscs so that immune cells can attack cancer cells in a personalized manner.”
Although it sounds very promising, the technology is in its early phase. So far, it has been successfully tested on mice for the treatment of colon and melanoma cancer tumors, during which the tumor was eliminated in just 10 days.
