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A widely reported study out yesterday from the journal Nature found that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines could play an important role in fighting hard-to-treat cancers. It’s an unexpected twist at a time when COVID-19 vaccines have become contentious, vaccination rates across the U.S. are declining, and mRNA technology faces an uncertain future due to the Trump administration’s defunding hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine research.
In 2016, a team of researchers from the University of Florida began developing mRNA vaccines to help patients with brain tumors. Along the way, they made an unexpected discovery: mRNA had the unique ability to “train” the immune system to fend off the cancer – even when the mRNA was unrelated to the cancer.
So when COVID-19 vaccines came along years later, the researchers had the serendipitous opportunity to ask a basic but elegant question: Might the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines also have antitumor effects? The answer was stunning. Cancer patients treated with immunotherapy who got one of the mRNA-based vaccines had a far greater survival rate than those who didn’t.
Two of the lead researchers, Adam Grippin from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Christiano Marconi from the University of Florida, gave The Conversation a glimpse behind the curtain at the promise these findings hold for cancer treatment. “This work exemplifies how a tool born from a global pandemic may provide a new weapon against cancer and rapidly extend the benefits of existing treatments to millions of patients,” they wrote.
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With a little help, your immune cells can be potent tumor killers.
Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Adam Grippin, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Christiano Marconi, University of Florida
The researchers found that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines could potentially help patients whose tumors don’t respond well to traditional immunotherapy.
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Economy + Business
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Lewis Faulk, American University; Mirae Kim, George Mason University
Federal funding cuts are destabilizing many nonprofits, threatening the services they provide.
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Politics + Society
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Peter A. Joy, Washington University in St. Louis
Is former FBI Director James Comey’s attempt to get his prosecution thrown out a legal slam-dunk? It may look like that to the public, but it’s not.
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Health + Medicine
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Jewel Scott, University of South Carolina
Young adults can take basic but powerful steps to address risk factors that set the stage for heart disease.
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Environment + Energy
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Ruohao Zhang, Penn State; Huan Li, North Carolina A&T State University; Neha Khanna, Binghamton University, State University of New York
As soon as the 2018-2019 shutdown began, coal-fired power plants started emitting more particulate matter pollution. And when the inspections resumed, the levels dropped back to normal.
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Science + Technology
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Corey Zheng, Georgia Institute of Technology; Shu Jia, Georgia Institute of Technology
This lens modeled on biological eyes could make it easier to give soft machines and bio-safe tools the ability to see.
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Arts + Culture
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Tom McDonough, Binghamton University, State University of New York
For the original surrealists, dreaming was not a matter of idle fantasy but a tool for political and social transformation.
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Ethics + Religion
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Alexander T. Englert, University of Richmond
Kant’s 3 rules can offer a helpful check as to whether we are not only living well but thinking well.
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International
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Dennis Altman, La Trobe University
The British royals are no strangers to scandals - and they are likely to be able to manage this one.
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