WORCESTER — An experimental mRNA immunotherapy developed by UMass Chan Medical School scientists Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, and Chaitanya Naimesh Parikh, PhD’26, eliminated pancreatic tumors in approximately half of the mice treated during a preclinical study.
According to UMass Chan Medical School, the study, published in Nature Communications, tested a treatment that combined immune-signaling cytokine mRNAs and tumor-associated antigen mRNAs in a single injection designed to help the immune system recognize and attack pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Approximately 50 percent of the mice with pancreatic cancer treated with the mRNA immunotherapeutic cocktail experienced complete tumor responses and remained disease-free for as long as one year after treatment ended, potentially indicating that their immune systems had developed a lasting memory of the cancer cells.
“It’s unheard of to get a response like this in these models of pancreatic cancer,” said Dr. Parikh. “There have been a lot of drugs tried in the lab that have had good initial responses in mice but ultimately the cancer always comes back. This is the only study I’ve seen that has achieved durable tumor protection.”…