Targeted nanoparticles can jumpstart T cells, allowing them to attack ovarian tumors while avoiding side effects

Cancer immunotherapy, which uses drugs that stimulate the body's immune cells to attack tumors, is a promising approach to treating many types of cancer. However, it doesn't work well for some tumors, including ovarian cancer.

To elicit a better response, MIT researchers have designed new nanoparticles that can deliver an immune-stimulating molecule called IL-12 directly to ovarian tumors. When given along with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, IL-12 helps the immune system launch an attack on cancer cells.

Studying a mouse model of ovarian cancer, the researchers showed that this combination treatment could eliminate metastatic tumors in more than 80% of the mice. When the mice were later injected with more cancer cells, to simulate tumor recurrence, their immune cells remembered the tumor proteins and cleared them again.

"What's really exciting is that we're able to deliver IL-12 directly in the tumor space. And because of the way that this nanomaterial is designed to allow IL-12 to be borne on the surfaces of the cancer cells, we have essentially tricked the cancer into stimulating immune cells to arm themselves against that cancer," says Paula Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor, MIT's vice provost for faculty, and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Image source: CC0 Public Domain.