Episode Transcript
Interviewer: The quest for a better cancer vaccine. We'll talk about that next on The Scope.
Announcer: 检查最新的研究，告诉你最新的突破. The Science and Research show is on The Scope.
Interviewer: I'm talking with Dr. Mingnan Chen, 犹他大学药剂学和药物化学助理教授. And with his graduate student Peng Zhao, 他是一项新研究的合著者，该研究旨在开发一种疫苗系统，有朝一日可用于治疗癌症和其他疾病. So vaccines against cancer, 我认为这是一个很多人仍在努力理解的概念. Dr. Chen, can you explain what that is?
Dr. Chen: Yes. 大发娱乐的身体实际上有一个运转良好的系统来保护大发娱乐，免疫系统保护大发娱乐免受癌症或各种感染. However this system, by nature, is not strong enough. 所以大发娱乐想用这种疫苗来增强这些免疫反应，这样大发娱乐就可以利用这些免疫反应来对抗癌症. 更进一步，大发娱乐在大发娱乐试图开发疫苗输送和佐剂系统, to further enhance the effectiveness of the vaccines. 这样大发娱乐就可以用它来预防癌症或治疗癌症.
Interviewer: So how does the vaccine work? Is it different from, say, a flu vaccine?
Dr. Chen: Largely, it is the same as a flu vaccine. 所以如果大发娱乐知道一群人可能有患某种癌症的高风险, like breast cancer, we can give this group of people breast cancer vaccines. 所以以后这种疫苗会保护这些人不患乳腺癌. Or we can use it as a treatment, say if a person develops breast cancer, we can use the vaccine together with surgery to treat breast cancer, to prevent the metastasis, or to prevent recurrence of breast cancer.
Interviewer: What is the vaccine made from?
Dr. Chen: The vaccine can be made from cancer cells, can be made with protein from the cancers, or from peptide from cancers. In our specific case we used peptide from cancers. 这种肽将由癌细胞呈现，就像癌细胞的标签一样. 大发娱乐把这种疫苗送到大发娱乐的身体里，这样大发娱乐的免疫系统就能识别带有这种标签的细胞.
Interviewer: So you're kind of teaching the immune cells how to attack that cancer?
Dr. Chen: Yes. Yes. We are teaching the immune cells. 大发娱乐还使用这种疫苗来增强免疫细胞，使其能够攻击这种类型的癌细胞.
Interviewer: 现在很明显，这并不容易，否则大发娱乐中的一些人已经接种了这些疫苗. So what's kind of the tricky part in developing these vaccines?
Dr. Chen: The tricky part of the vaccine, first, is efficacy. The second is safety. The third is cost. So for the efficacy. Right now, the cancer vaccine, 目前仍有大量的癌症疫苗临床试验.
然而，目前只有两种药物被批准用于临床. 所以大发娱乐想用这种独特的疫苗输送和辅助系统来极大地提高癌症疫苗的有效性，这样它就能在临床中显示出效果. On top of that, 大发娱乐的疫苗输送系统在安全性和准备方面也有优势. So it could have a very low cost to produce this type of vaccine.
Interviewer: 你们的一些研究集中在优化这种输送和辅助系统上. Peng, could you give me a basic idea of what that is?
Peng: 输送系统的基础是，大发娱乐使用纳米粒子为基础的系统来输送疫苗. Comparing to the flu vaccine, which usually are delivered by peptide, this nanoparticle delivery is actually preferred by immune cells. So the uptake is actually better.
其次，也是更重要的一点，大发娱乐可以将不同的异常情况与疫苗结合起来. In nanoparticle, just by one protein, one peptide. So it kind of addresses a problem other people cannot address. So when we are incorporating abnormalities there together, they work together to immediately show effect. 其他人则需要混合，一般来说，效果不太好. That's the basis of our delivery system.
Interviewer: The nanoparticle, what does that do? Does it help stabilize the vaccine?
Peng: There are multiple views of it. So peptide is much smaller than a nanoparticle. So when we inject them they diffuse everywhere, 这有点像免疫细胞吸收肽的效率很低. Immune cells are not designed to do that. 想想看，免疫细胞天生就喜欢病毒、细菌等颗粒. So if you put peptides on some particle, artificial particle, it will help the immune cell to recognize them, and it gets them.
Interviewer: 但事实证明，你可以让粒子进入免疫细胞，但这只是成功的一半.
Peng: For a vaccine to work, 在它们被细胞摄取后，它们需要经过处理以便在呈现之前被识别. So our particle actually has this responsive characteristic, 这意味着当它们被带入细胞时它们可以分离并释放肽供细胞进一步呈现给其他免疫细胞.
Dr. Chen: 所以大发娱乐说这个系统有很好的可变稳定性对比. When we want them to be stable, they are very stable. And when we want them to become unstable, they become unstable.
Interviewer: Do you intend to take this to clinical trials?
Dr. Chen: Yes. 从这个项目一开始，大发娱乐的目标就是将疫苗输送系统从实验室带到床边. 当大发娱乐四年前开始开发这种疫苗输送和佐剂系统时. 大发娱乐最重要的标准之一是这个系统必须具有生物相容性和免疫相容性不仅对老鼠而且对人类. 这样大发娱乐就可以在动物模型上对这个系统进行临床前测试, which is very important, but also clinically in human beings.
现在大发娱乐有了这个系统，大发娱乐对这个系统在不久的将来可以使病人受益的想法感到非常兴奋. 大发娱乐正在努力推动这个系统向前发展，这样这个系统就可以进行临床测试. First we are testing this system in animal melanoma models. 结果是非常令人兴奋和有希望的，因为这个系统确实增强了抗黑色素瘤的免疫反应. Second, 大发娱乐正在继续改进这个系统，使它有能力克服癌症疫苗面临的多重障碍. So, 希望大发娱乐能提出一个更强大的输送系统，这样这个系统就有很大的可能在临床中成功.
最后我想提一下，大发娱乐拥有这个系统的知识产权. 大发娱乐正在寻找投资，可以大发娱乐大发娱乐把这个系统从大发娱乐的台式到医院的床边.
Announcer: Interesting. Informative. And all in the name of better health. This is The Scope Health Sciences Radio.