14th Edition of the Aragón Investiga Awards
3 June, 2024
Researcher Carlos Martín receives the Aragonese Prize of the Year
5 June, 2024After achieving 90% improvements in asthma in preclinical phases, researchers from the University of Zaragoza find its power against lung and bladder tumors
While waiting for the Spanish vaccine against tuberculosis Mtbvac to become the universal one, replacing BCG, which is only effective in children, this candidate and the current one could be beneficial not only in the fight against tuberculosis, the disease deadliest infectious disease worldwide, already ahead of Covid-19, HIV and AIDS.
Researcher Nacho Aguiló from the University of Zaragoza, the Network Biomedical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases (Ciberes) and the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), is working to demonstrate together with his team that these live vaccines, based on attenuated bacteria, are capable of reversing the effects of asthma, bladder cancer and lung cancer.
"Our goal is to use them as a treatment for different diseases, since as vaccines they continue to activate the immune system," he explains to this supplement.
Thus, when administered directly into the lungs to mouse models in which an allergic response had previously been induced, these vaccines are capable of reversing "a very high percentage" of the effects of asthma.
"We can be talking about a reduction of around 90%», says Aguiló.
At the same time, as the scientist adds, "we have also seen a decrease in the remodeling of the lung epithelium, not as pronounced, but a significant reduction" in laboratory rodents as a chronic model of the disease. That is, researchers have achieved a potential preventive as well as therapeutic effect of these live vaccines.
Yes as long as it is put directly into the lungs. «Intradermally we have not seen protection against asthma, so what we have shown is that It is important that the vaccine reaches the lungs to alter the asthmatic response», emphasizes the scientist Aguiló.
A single dose
As for which vaccine gives better results, "in the context of asthma we have not seen differences" between the current BCG, based on a live attenuated form of Mycobacterium bovis isolated from cows, and Mtbvac, which is the first and only one based in the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis to enter clinical studies.
Currently, “we are in preclinical development. We are trying to promote "the next phase, because, if the achievements achieved in the mouse models can be extrapolated, "it would mean a paradigm shift in terms of treatment, since we propose a single dose of vaccine," highlights Aguiló.
"We have tried to take steps with companies interested in allergies, but there are no positive responses," acknowledges the researcher, after remembering that the asthma treatment industry is an important business that is based on its chronicity.
At least for now. Therefore, the next objective is to further support research "with more preclinical data on both efficacy and safety" to awaken the interest of the industry.
If the latter were achieved and everything went well, "in ten years it could begin to be used in human beings," estimates the scientist.
Another powerful line of research of this team is against cancer. Specifically, against bladder and lung cancer.
Regarding bladder cancer (which is estimated to be the fifth most common in our country this year), the BCG vaccine has been the first-line treatment for this tumor for more than 40 years. Aguiló and his team want to show if this protective effect occurs in both vaccines, "but administering them directly into the bladder», says Aguiló.
BCG, as the researcher from the University of Zaragoza explains, “is more effective than chemotherapy, since it prevents 70% of recurrences in the case of bladder cancer. But those who suffer a relapse are practically orphaned from treatment," which is why this team of scientists seeks to find a new way.
And the results achieved in their research in animal models in which this tumor was caused conclude that "Mtbvac is much more effective than BCG and even more so in models that were resistant to the current vaccine, so the vaccine candidate would be an option." for these cases.
Specifically, «With Mtbvac we have seen a cure of bladder cancer in 50-60% of mice in which the BCG vaccine did not protect anything. Furthermore, we have proven that combining Mtbvac with immunotherapy treatments increases survival by more than 90%."
A milestone that would represent hope for these patients who, as Aguiló recalls, "only have the option of having their bladder removed to prevent the cancer from progressing."
That is why this expert and his team are trying to take this research to the clinic with Biofabri, a Galician company that develops the Mtbvac vaccine led by the University of Zaragoza researcher Carlos Martín.
They are also investigating the power of the tuberculosis vaccine against lung cancer. «In this case the administration would be intravenous. We have seen that this cancer in advanced stages does not only affect the organ where the tumor is, but also spreads to the entire body. With this hypothesis we decided to see in mouse models what happened and we have observed that vaccination achieves significant reductions in tumors and that in this way the life of the animals was extended two or three times, "which, extrapolated to clinical trials, would mean a fairly significant increase in survival."
Furthermore, as the scientist explains, combining BCG with immunotherapy increases effectiveness and extends survival even further. "We have achieved cure in up to 40-50% of the mice in some models used," he says. The next step is to test whether and to what extent this also happens with the universal vaccine candidate Mtbvac. "We're starting to work on this now," she says.
Worst tuberculosis figures in the US in 2012
For years, the United States has had one of the lowest tuberculosis rates in the world. But just like in Spain, where the number of tuberculosis cases increased in 2023 for the first time in a decade, in the United States there have been increases for three years.
Thus, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during 2023, the count of tuberculosis cases increased in all age groups, as well as among people born and not born in the United States.
Specifically, tuberculosis cases went from 8.320 in 2022 to 9.615 in 2023. This is the third consecutive increase since a significant decrease was recorded in 2020: 7.171 cases. And they are the worst figures recorded since 2012, when 9.906 cases of tuberculosis were reported.
Source: The Razón