Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses the body's own immune system to help fight cancer. This is by stimulating the immune response to recognize and attack cancer cells more effectively. The treatment involves using substances that boost the immune system, teaching immune cells to target cancer, or using engineered cells to specifically target and kill cancer cells.
While it is a key approach in cancer treatment, the effectiveness of immunotherapy is limited by the risk of immune-related side effects, because the immune system, while targeting cancer cells, may also attack normal, healthy tissues. These side effects include inflammation or damage to various organs and tissues, causing a range of symptoms or complications in health outcomes. A team led by Assistant Professor Minh Le from the Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) and Department of Pharmacology at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) has unveiled a novel delivery platform that significantly enhances the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy while reducing the associated side effects.
This innovative approach, leveraging nano-sized particles released by cells, termed "extracellular vesicles" (EVs), represents a major advancement in the field of cancer immunotherapy. In the study, the researchers developed a technique which modified EVs to carry multiple immune-boosting molecules called 'immunomodulatory ligands', for the treatment of in vivo models .