Recently, doctors have launched a trial of the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine, which is considered to have “unprecedented” possibilities.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, causing about 1.8 million deaths each year. In particular, in the advanced stage where the tumors have spread, the survival rate is much lower. Now experts are testing a new vaccine, which triggers the body to find and kill cancer cells – and then prevent them from coming back. The vaccine is named BNT116 and is made by BioNTech. This vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is the most common form of the disease.

The Phase 1 clinical trial, which is the first human study of BNT116, has begun in seven countries at 34 research sites: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

There are six sites in the UK, located in England and Wales, from where the first UK patient received the first dose of the vaccine on Tuesday. In total, around 130 patients will receive immunotherapy with the vaccine — from early-stage to before surgery or radiotherapy, from advanced-stage disease or recurrent cancer. About 20 of these will be from the UK.

The vaccine uses messenger RNA (mRNA), which is similar to the COVID-19 vaccine, and it trains the body’s immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells. The purpose is to strengthen the cancer response while without teasing healthy cells, which is the opposite of chemotherapy.

“We are now entering this exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials,” said Professor Siov Ming Li, consultant medical oncologist at UCLH, who is leading the trial in the UK. “It’s simple to give, and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell, and then target them. This technology represents the next big stage of cancer treatment.”

Januj Raquez, 67, from London, who specializes in AI, received the vaccine for the first time in the UK. He was diagnosed with cancer in May and soon began chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He said that his profession motivates him to participate in this trial. “I am also a scientist, and I understand that the progress of science – especially in medicine – depends on people participating in such research,” he said.

Rakz received six consecutive injections in 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research (UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday. Each injection had different RNA strands. They will receive the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.

Lee said, “We hope that adding this additional treatment will prevent cancer from returning, because very often for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it comes back.” “I started lung cancer research in the 1990s. At that time, no one believed in chemotherapy. We now know that 20-30% of [of patients] survive with immunotherapy in stage 4 and now we want to improve the survival rate. Hopefully this mRNA vaccine, over immunotherapy, can provide an additional boost.”

Notably, in May, The Guardian revealed that thousands of patients in England would be increasingly included in ground-breaking trials of cancer vaccines to save lives.

Lord Valance, Science Minister appreciated the commencement of lung cancer vaccine trial. “This approach has the potential to save the lives of thousands of people diagnosed with lung cancer every year,” he said. “We support our researchers to continue to play an important role in this type of ground-breaking therapy.”