Scientists at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences recently created a new vaccine that introduces modified cells to help the body remember and attack tumors as they develop.

While immunotherapy is a common strategy against cancer, many treatments are held back by an immune system that cannot enter the tumor’s environment and effectively fight the cancer. But with the RIKEN center’s development implanted cells from the vaccine unify both the body’s innate immune and adaptive responses, which keep track of cancer cells and respond.

The recently published study in Cancer Research noted that the treatment facilitated the movement of CD8+T cells and assisted these cells in targeting cancer.

Shin-ichiro Fuji, head of the Laboratory for Immunotherapy and leader of the study, noted that cancer cells have different sensitiveness to the adaptive or innate response, so it’s crucial to target them both in order to eliminate them. They have developed an unique sort of modified cell called aAVC, which can tackle both responses.

These aAVC cells are harvested outside of the subject’s body and adapted by adding the T-cell ligand. This allows the cells to mimic T-cells and a toxin related to cancer.

As these cells switch on, they enhance the progression of dendritic cells that arrange innate response and acquired response. These cells active immune memory, allowing the body to react to danger even well into the future.

To test this strategy, researchers observed the process in mice that had an aggressive type of melanoma that also had the antigen “OVA.” These studies discovered that particularly hostile tumors could shrink by immunizing the mice with aAVC cells showing this antigen. As a result, tumors in these mice were smaller and virulent on the inside, illustrating that CD8+T-cells were attacking the cancer.

Fuji added that they were interested in finding a mechanism and that they are now able to understand that the aAVC treatment led to the development of blood vessels in tumors that disclosed a pair of important adhesion molecules, VCAM-1 and ICAM-1, that are not normally indicated in tumors. This allowed the killer CD8+T-cells to infilirate into the tumor cells.

Researchers also noted that in these vaccinated mice, cancer cells implanted a year after the study were still wiped out, indicating that they successfully designed an »immune mind« that remembers the tumor and attacks it if it reappears.

Looking to the future, Fuji said the therapy with aAVC shows promise. Unlike this study, typical immunotherapies have to be tailor-made with the patient’s own cells.