Speaker: Prof. Erwei SONG
Time: 3:30-4:30 PM, 11 Dec. , 2024
Venue: Room 110, Lynn Library
Topic: Next generation RNA vaccine in tumor immunotherapy
Speaker: Prof. Erwei SONG
Time: 3:30-4:30 PM, 11 Dec. , 2024
Venue: Room 110, Lynn Library
Introduction:
Erwei is keen to address scientific questions derived from clinical practice. He is among the first doctors in China to perform breast-conserving surgery, which preserves the microenvironment tissues for activation of anti-tumor immunity.
-- His study has proposed and solidified “the Theory of Tumor Ecosystem”, which sheds new lights on immunotherapy.
-- He has published 171 SCI research articles, including Nature, Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Immunology, Nature Cell Biology, etc.
--He was the first to report that siRNA could be used therapeutically in whole animal disease model (published in Nature Medicine), which was selected as one of the “Top Ten breakthroughs of the year 2003” by Science.
--His latest book on “Tumor Ecosystem: an ecological view of cancer growth and survival” was published by Springer Nature Publishing in June 2023.
Abstract:
RNA researches have experienced nearly a hundred years of development. All the theoretical findings of basic RNA research have laid the foundation for the application of RNA in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The discovery of RNA interference and nucleoside base modifications won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006 and 2023 respectively, and the successful application of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has made RNA research a frontier field. Moreover, RNA vaccine has also made a breakthrough in the field of tumor immunotherapy, which elicits anti-tumor immunity by promoting the generation of antigen-specific T cells. Compared with other types of vaccines, mRNA vaccines can be engineered with multiple antigens, and even costimulatory signals, which do not integrate the genome and have the advantages of quick and convenient production. However, mRNA vaccines still have some limitations, such as RNA degradation, high immunogenicity and poor delivery efficiency. At present, we identified a “dark matter” antigen derived from the unique peptides translated from tumor specific circRNA, which elicits robust antigen-specific anti-tumor immunity. In vivo, administration of vaccines consisting of tumor-specific circRNA or its encoded peptides in mice bearing breast cancer or melanoma induced enhanced infiltration of tumor-antigen specific CTLs, which led to effective tumor control. In the future, strategies that optimizing the antigen selection, improving RNA synthesis and translation efficiency, modifying the immunogenicity and stability of RNA, improving the efficiency of RNA delivery, and combined immunotherapies might provide insights for the application of RNA vaccines in tumor immunotherapy.