Solid vaccine eliminates acute myeloid leukemia in mice
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a deadly blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow and kills most of its victims within five years. Chemotherapy has been the standard AML treatment for over 40 years, and while it often causes the cancer to go into remission, it rarely completely eliminates the cancerous cells, which then lead to disease recurrence in nearly half of treated patients. Aggressive post-remission treatments, like high-dose chemotherapy or bone marrow transplants, can reduce the chance of recurrence, but many AML patients are not healthy enough to tolerate them. Now, a new study presents an alternative treatment that has the potential to eliminate AML cells completely: an injectable, biomaterial-based vaccine that, when combined with standard chemotherapy, caused complete and lasting recovery from and immunity against AML in mice. The study was conducted by researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the Harvard John A. Paulson School...