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Phoenix666 writes:

New Harvard vaccine technique coats red blood cells in nanoparticles :

Researchers at Harvard have developed a new platform for producing vaccines – and the secret ingredient is blood. The technique involves loading red blood cells with antigens that they can then use to generate a specific immune response, and tests in mice have shown it is effective in slowing the growth of cancer.

[...] Red blood cells have a secondary function of carrying neutralized pathogens to the spleen, where they’re passed onto antigen-presenting cells (APCs). From there, white blood cells learn to recognize these antigens, which are the molecules of a pathogen that the body uses to launch a counter-attack. This improves the immune response against those pathogens.

The new system, named Erythrocyte-Driven Immune Targeting (EDIT), exploits this. The problem is that normally, the payload is sheared off as red blood cells squeeze through narrow capillaries in the lungs, so much of it never reaches the spleen. But the team developed a way to stick antigen nanoparticles to red blood cells firmly enough to reach their destination.

Tests in mice showed immune response was boosted eight-fold, and tumor growth rates were reduced by one-third.

Journal Reference:
Anvay Ukidve, Zongmin Zhao, Alexandra Fehnel, et al. Erythrocyte-driven immunization via biomimicry of their natural antigen-presenting function [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002880117)

Original Submission