[Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine box]
[Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine bottle]
[Teen getting COVID-19 shot in the arm]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “For this study, we looked back at over a thousand patients with lung cancer and melanoma who were treated with immune therapy at our institution. We found that those patients who happened to receive a COVID mRNA vaccine around the time they started that immune therapy lived significantly longer than patients who did not receive a vaccine.”
[Researcher working at an RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “What we found is that COVID mRNA vaccines act like a siren to activate the immune system throughout the body.”
[RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “One of the problems with immune therapy is that it only works in patients whose immune systems are already able to kill their cancer.”
[RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “What we found is that the COVID mRNA vaccine can reprogram immune systems to kill cancer in a way that allows immune therapy to work more effectively.”
[Researchers at the RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “This data is incredibly exciting because it suggests that mRNA vaccines, even those that are widely available, might be used as a tool to reprogram patients’ immune systems to kill cancer. But even though the data is promising, we must validate this in a phase three clinical trial before we apply these results in clinic. And that’s exactly what our next step is. So we are currently planning a phase 3 clinical trial in which we would have patients who are receiving immune therapy and randomize them to either receive the vaccine with their therapy or not. That is really the best way for us to tell whether these vaccines are actually improving outcomes or not.”
[Researchers looking at a monitor at the University of Florida’s RNA Engineering Laboratory]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “We have been studying mRNA vaccines for 10 years, and we primarily focused on making personalized mRNA vaccines that would be designed for each individual patient. While we were doing that, we discovered that many of the benefits of these mRNA vaccines happen even if you don’t personalize them. And so that was really the discovery that triggered us to look back at COVID mRNA vaccines. Because the COVID mRNA vaccines are widely available, we were able to look back and see how those widely available vaccines impacted survival.”
[Moderna vaccine box]
[COVID-19 vaccine box in a fridge]
[Man receiving COVID vaccination]
Dr. Adam Grippin (interview): “I think that the, you know, really two most important conclusions here are that there’s a potential that a currently available vaccine could improve responses to our patients. And then there’s also, really, we’ve opened the door to the possibility that we could develop even better universal RNA therapeutics to sensitize patients who otherwise wouldn’t respond to immune therapy.”
[Image of a healthcare worker preparing a shot of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.