When you’re sick and you go to the doctor or purchase over the counter medicine, for the most part they’re quite generalized meaning that they tend to work for almost everyone. However sometimes what works well for someone might not be quite as effective for another, which is where customized treatments come in.This is something that researchers at the University of Michigan (via Science Daily) have come up with in regards to cancer treatment, or to be more specific, treatment for colon and melanoma cancer tumors which they have customized using nanodiscs. The discs are loaded up with tumor neoantigens, and helps generate T-cells that recognize these neoantigens which then targets the cancer mutations and fights them to eliminate cancer cells as well as prevent tumor growth.
According to James Moon, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering, “We are basically educating the immune system with these nanodiscs so that immune cells can attack cancer cells in a personalized manner. The idea is that these vaccine nanodiscs will trigger the immune system to fight the existing cancer cells in a personalized manner.”
That being said, its use to treat cancer in patients right now is still pretty far off. The researchers were successful in their tests on mice, so clearly human testing has yet to begin. The next phase will involve testing the technology on a larger group of larger animals, but it’s still good to hear that progress is being made.