UC engineer applies Covid lessons to cancer
Researchers investigate new applications for mRNA therapies
A chemical engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati is developing new ways to deliver treatments for infectious diseases and cancer using the technology found in COVID-19 vaccines.
Joo-Youp Lee, UC College of Engineering and Applied Science professor, is developing delivery systems for new treatments using messenger RNA, or mRNA, which helps cells translate information from DNA to create new proteins. Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech used this technology in their COVID-19 vaccines.
Joo-Youp Lee. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand
Some vaccines use an inactive version of a virus to trigger an immune response that helps create antibodies to protect patients from viruses. Similarly, mRNA vaccines tell the cells to make the same protective proteins that trigger the immune system if people contract the virus.
“The traditional way of making vaccines is we get these viruses and deactivate them, cultivate them and inject them,” Lee said. “We can make MRNA in the lab really quickly. And we can make it and mass produce it.”
One key to new mRNA therapeutics is having an efficient delivery system of mRNA across the cell membrane, typically using lipid nanoparticles. Lee said mRNA is unstable and degrades easily.
“Ultimately, we want to design these vehicles for specific organs so we can have a targeted delivery,” he said. “For example, with Covid, the spleen or lymph nodes are where immune cells are generated. So it would be best if we could have a delivery system targeting those organs.”
Lee sees similar promise with cancer immunotherapy. He said similar genetic-engineering treatments such as CAR T-cell therapy already have proven effective in blood cancers. This treatment modifies the patient’s immune system cells in a way that they can recognize and kill cancer cells.
Lee is a member of UC's Cancer Center, which is dedicated to developing new treatments and care.
“The difficulty of cancer is mutation. It’s a ‘forever fight’ using radiation, chemotherapy and hormone therapies and their combinations,” he said.
Cancer immunotherapy such as CAR T-cell therapy harnesses the power of a patient’s immune system to attack cancer cells, he said.
Cell therapy has proven effective. But the barrier is to develop treatment methods.
Joo-Youp Lee, UC College of Engineering and Applied Science
This type of personalized treatment is expensive because T cells from each patient must be genetically modified, Lee said.
“The costs are a major barrier for CAR T-cell therapy. If we use mRNA instead, we can take blood from a patient, decode it, identify what we have to fight against and make mRNA at a relatively low cost to inject into the patient,” he said.
“If we have a good vehicle to target an organ, we can deliver the mRNA into the lymph nodes and spleen. Those immune cells will be trained with information delivered from the mRNA.”
Lee worked with Madison Bourbon and Geoffrey Pinski in UC's Commercialization Office in the 1819 Innovation Hub to obtain patents for his latest work.
“Cell therapy has proven effective. But the barrier is to develop treatment methods,” he said.
Featured image at top: UC College of Pharmacy pharmacist Mary Burns draws a vial during clinical trials for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in this 2020 file photo. UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Professor Joo-Youp Lee is investigating new delivery systems for cancer and other diseases using similar mRNA technology. Photo/Colleen Kelley/UC Marketing + Brand
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