The use of whole tumour cell preparations in cancer immunotherapy, to simultaneously target multiple tumour antigens to activate the immune response, is a promising therapeutic approach. Ye et al. have developed a transdermal microneedle vaccine patch that directly targets antigen-presenting cells via delivery of B16F10 melanoma whole tumour lysates combined with melanin. Application of the patch in conjunction with near-infrared irradiation — which melanin transforms to heat, which boosts the immune response — prevented tumour engraftment in prophylactic mouse melanoma models and caused sustained tumour regression in mice with established tumours.
References
Ye, Y. et al. A melanin-mediated cancer immunotherapy patch. Sci. Immunol. 2, eaan5692 (2017)
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Crunkhorn, S. Vaccine patch to treat melanoma. Nat Rev Drug Discov 17, 18 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.259
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.259