Ginzburg announced plans for mRNA vaccines against kidney and breast cancer

Russian scientists plan to create personalized mRNA vaccines against kidney, breast and pancreatic cancer. In order for the drug to appear, models of oncologic diseases will be developed. This was told on January 23 by Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the National Research Center (NRC) of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N.F. Gamaleya. N.F. Gamalei Alexander Gintsburg.

The vaccines are planned to be tested at the end of this year or in early 2026, if the amount of funding allows. At the same time, research oncovaccines for patients with melanoma can be started as early as September this year, he noted.

"If they (the amount of funding. - Ed.) will be as we agreed, then we will start intensively in parallel with melanoma, where everything is worked out <...>, to make other models of cancer in order to <...> be able to create vaccines against small cell lung cancer, as is known, the most common human cancer with the highest lethality. Further, in all likelihood, certain [varieties of] kidney cancer, possibly breast cancer and pancreatic cancer - these are our plans," the scientist told TASS.

Also, Gintsburg added, depending on the funds allocated, two or three additional lines of animal models of cancer trials will be launched.

"So that at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year we can already count on the fact that our colleagues from cancer centers will be able to start testing oncovaccines on patients with these cancers as well," he specified.

Spot-on: melanoma vaccine to be tested on patients in fall 2025

What is the principle of its work and how promising is the personalized approach

In October 2024, Gintsburg said that the first to receive a personalized Russian oncovaccine will be patients with melanoma (skin cancer). The choice is explained by the fact that this is a superficial disease and in their case it will be easier to observe the effect of the drug. Later, patients with other types of tumors will also receive the vaccine, but there will be no mass testing, because the drug is created individually for each person.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) Veronika Skvortsova on November 25 that the introduction of a cancer vaccine created in Russia would be a breakthrough. The head of the FMBA told the head of state how the agency's innovative developments in the field of biotechnology, including oncovaccines, were moving forward.