WVU in the News: How mRNA Vaccines Could Help Treat Cancer

Once tumors are established, they become even more adept at hiding out from the immune system. They might cloak themselves in proteins to block immune cells from entering them or undergo genetic changes to further reduce the chance that disease-fighting cells will notice anything is amiss.

In his report to the advisory board earlier in the day, Letai said that in 1990 the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), a nonprofit established by Congress, is taking the lead on public-private partnerships for vaccine research. “We hope, and I actually expect, that we will get significant support from outside the government for this very exciting clinical trial program,” he said.

But even if the end of mRNA vaccine development affects only those for COVID-19 and other respiratory infections, “this is concerning given how many advances in cancer immunology originated from infectious disease vaccine research,” noted the authors of a recent Viewpoint in JAMA Oncology.

In addition, the unfounded skepticism Kennedy and his appointees have sown about the safety of COVID-19 shots could limit cancer vaccine uptake, says Dannell Boatman, EdD, MS, a health communications researcher at the West Virginia University Cancer Institute.