With a five-year survival rate of just 13%, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest. But researchers at Case CCC—Zheng-Rong Lu, PhD, Li Lily Wang, PhD, Jordan Winter, MD, and Akram Salah Shalaby, MD—are developing a vaccine that could help change that statistic. The vaccine uses nanoparticles containing antigens to target and destroy malignant cells. It has achieved incredible results, with more than half of the preclinical models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) becoming completely cancer-free months after vaccination.
"This platform has the potential to transform clinical care for this devastating disease," Wang said. "I am excited to see that our novel nano-vaccine worked so well in eliciting vigorous responses from tumor-reactive T cells—which are typically low in numbers and unable to control tumor growth.”