Directing vaccines to dendritic cells

Directing vaccines to dendritic cells Many cancer vaccines under investigation use mRNA to deliver key information to the immune system. But most of these trials do not effectively target dendritic cells, a key orchestrator of the immune response. Because dendritic cells display antigens on their surface, which activates other components of the immune system and sounds the alarm about a potential threat, they are an attractive target for cancer treatment strategies. With the ultimate goal of developing an improved vaccine strategy, a research team at Johns Hopkins University has designed a targeted, biodegradable nanoparticle that specifically delivers mRNA to dendritic cells. When evaluated in multiple mouse tumor models, treatment with the nanoparticles provided robust antitumor activity when combined with a type of therapy called immune checkpoint blockade. Their results were recently reported in the journal PNAS.