31–40 of 53 posts
This is obviously good but note that it appears to be covering mesothelioma only, and "The median [overall survival] OS was 15.4 months (95% CI, 11.1-22.6) for UV1 plus ipilimumab and nivolumab (treatment arm) versus 11.1 months (95% CI, 8.8-18.1) for ipilimumab and nivolumab alone." Another headline could be: "Cancer vaccine helps some mesothelioma patients live an extra 4.3 months," which is less exciting than the…
Disclaimer: I'm an investor in Ultimovacs and run a community for Ultimovacs investors at tekinvestor.no (in Norwegian, but google translate can help :))
"Ultimovacs is evaluating the universal cancer vaccine UV1 in a broad clinical development program across various cancer indications with different biologies and disease stages, in combination with different checkpoint inhibitors. The topline data from NIPU are the first results among the five randomized trials in the UV1 Phase II clinical program. In addition to malignant mesothelioma, Phase II studies are ongoing in patients with malignant melanoma, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. The topline data from the malignant melanoma and head and neck cancer trials are expected during the first and second half of 2024. UV1 is a patented, proprietary technology owned by Ultimovacs."
I have a friend doing her PhD in cancer research. She tells me to take every Phase I trial with a huge grain of salt, because they rarely make it to market. [1] 1: https://i.postimg.cc/L4G0FdWf/cancer-study.jpg
This is obviously good but note that it appears to be covering mesothelioma only, and "The median [overall survival] OS was 15.4 months (95% CI, 11.1-22.6) for UV1 plus ipilimumab and nivolumab (treatment arm) versus 11.1 months (95% CI, 8.8-18.1) for ipilimumab and nivolumab alone." Another headline could be: "Cancer vaccine helps some mesothelioma patients live an extra 4.3 months," which is less exciting than the…
Personalised cancer vaccines really seem to be the most promising avenue there is at the moment, as the problem seems to always have been that unless you can kill the tumour right to the last cell whatever is left will just adapt and grow back more resilient than before. I generally scan over tumour shrinkage in these reports (even substantial shrinkage) as palliative in nature (maybe I'm naive but I've trained myself to look at it this way). Elimination of tumours (even in a subset of patients) gives me hope as it at least means something there really is effective and can be revised on later.
This is obviously good but note that it appears to be covering mesothelioma only, and "The median [overall survival] OS was 15.4 months (95% CI, 11.1-22.6) for UV1 plus ipilimumab and nivolumab (treatment arm) versus 11.1 months (95% CI, 8.8-18.1) for ipilimumab and nivolumab alone." Another headline could be: "Cancer vaccine helps some mesothelioma patients live an extra 4.3 months," which is less exciting than the…
The vaccine itself targeting telomarase is interesting, but not without limitations. Immunized T cells can only 'see' telomarase (which is inside the cell) if bits of it are presented on the cancer cell surface via MHC molecules (which is what they are for - to provide a 'window' into the cell for the immune system to peek through). Cancer cells predictably shed MHC molecules in an attempt to hide.
Another angle is that telomerase can be transiently activated in rapidly proliferating cells (most notably... lymphocytes). So there may be some on-target off-cancer effects.
Another difficulty is that T cells in general have a hard time getting into solid tumors in sufficient numbers (unless additional measures are taken).
(I am a biologist who works in CAR-T development)
It’s a protein epitope vaccine against a normal human protein. Not stated here, but it may also target normal stem cells needed for repair and renewal processes. This risk may be reduced by the cessation of checkpoint blockades, but, the immune system can’t forget a target, and autoimmunity is an unsolved problem. HLA binding is also not perfectly specific, and any immune response is likely to generate more immunity from the target cell. This universal targeting of normal peptides may be an acceptable last-line defense, but I would be more comfortable targeting a somatic mutation with some significant differentiation from anything in the human exome.
This is officially the king of all clickbait
This is obviously good but note that it appears to be covering mesothelioma only, and "The median [overall survival] OS was 15.4 months (95% CI, 11.1-22.6) for UV1 plus ipilimumab and nivolumab (treatment arm) versus 11.1 months (95% CI, 8.8-18.1) for ipilimumab and nivolumab alone." Another headline could be: "Cancer vaccine helps some mesothelioma patients live an extra 4.3 months," which is less exciting than the…
Checkpoint blockades are great if you are providing a lot of the epitopes to target, but not so great if your immune system isn’t already killing cells to provide that. One way of providing substrate is personalized mRNA. Another much simpler way is tumor ablation. I have done this on myself and my animals with mixed results, mostly positive. I use ascorbic acid to ablate skin tumors, and ethyl-cellulose injection for larger masses.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Numbers like that are highly misleading, because it's a conditional. If your chances of dying from something are 1 in 10 million, and a treatment changes that to 1 in a billion, then that treatment would mean you're 99% less likely to die of whatever. But the risk of death is so extremely low to begin with, that that 99% figure is largely just noise. I mean noise in both the colloquial sense, as well as the statistic…
The flu vaccine reduces severity and likelihood of catching it as well (which can serve to protect vulnerable populations). Your own personal chance of death is not all that matters. Getting it yearly may also reduce the risk of other related conditions e.g. https://www.uth.edu/news/story/uthealth-houston-study-flu-va... It's nearly risk free and it's definitely worth it even if all it did was decrease the severity o…
This is an insane perspective, eventually leading to totalitarianism. Thinking this to the end, everyone should get forced to be vaccinated for everything, because it might save someone who might die from it.
"Protect the weak and innocent" is a great excuse for reducing the freedoms of people.
Absolutely insane.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The flu vaccine reduces severity and likelihood of catching it as well (which can serve to protect vulnerable populations). Your own personal chance of death is not all that matters. Getting it yearly may also reduce the risk of other related conditions e.g. https://www.uth.edu/news/story/uthealth-houston-study-flu-va... It's nearly risk free and it's definitely worth it even if all it did was decrease the severity o…
> The flu vaccine reduces severity and likelihood of catching it as well (which can serve to protect vulnerable populations). Your own personal chance of death is not all that matters. This is an insane perspective, eventually leading to totalitarianism. Thinking this to the end, everyone should get forced to be vaccinated for everything, because it might save someone who might die from it. "Protect the weak and inno…