German scientists, who are a married couple in everyday life, are best known for their Covid-19 vaccine, which was distributed in Europe together with the large pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
In 2008 they were co-founders of BioNTech. They started that company with the intention of treating different types of cancer, such as melanoma, colon cancer, and other variants. When the corona pandemic arrived, they used this technique to develop their Covid vaccine.
immune system
So now they want to develop it further for their original purpose, they say in conversation with the BBCnamely fight cancer.
BioNTech is currently conducting several cancer studies, including one in which patients receive a “personalized” vaccine. This is a vaccine tailored to their DNA. They therefore hope that this vaccine triggers the patient’s immune system to attack and disable diseased cells.
BioNTech’s vaccines work via messenger RNA, or mRNA. The technique basically gives the immune cells “an instruction or a blueprint” to make an antigen. It would act as a “marker”, a kind of flag signal, that “points” to cancer cells. The immune system must learn to recognize harmful cells and attack them in time.
‘The mRNA acts as a template to instruct the body to produce the drug or vaccine itself,’ says Professor Türeci. “When you use mRNA as a vaccine, it’s like a ‘wanted poster’ by the enemy.”
Number of discoveries
The application of the mRNA technique had not yet been tested before the corona pandemic, but the success of those vaccines encourages scientists to believe that this treatment could also be successful against cancer. Cancer research had already begun before the crown. The BBC writes that the first results are “encouraging”.
“Every step, every patient we treat in our studies, teaches us more about the disease and how to fight it,” says Türeci. “As scientists, we are always cautious about claims that we will cure cancer, but we have some breakthroughs and continue to work on them.”
Many “promising” studies have been known to be unsuccessful, so it’s important not to celebrate too fast. It may take years before it becomes clear whether BioNTech’s approach is successful and “can live up to the hype”.
Patent case
There is also a lawsuit involving BioNTech: Pharmaceutical company Moderna is suing the Pfizer / BioNTech combination. According to Moderna, the “colleagues” copied parts of their patents related to the mRNA technique without authorization without authorization. According to BioNTech, he developed the technology behind the corona vaccine itself.
