Butch/Wang Group Students Demonstrate New Vaccine Technology for Post-Surgical Cancer Treatment
Biomedical Engineering Team Develops Rapid, Personalized Approach That Could Improve Post-Operative Cancer Care
Students advised by professors Shuming Nie, Christopher J. Butch, and Yiqing Wang in the Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a personalized cancer vaccine that can be manufactured in just 72 hours—a dramatic improvement over traditional cell-based therapies that require 6-8 weeks to produce.
The innovative treatment, called ACT-vac (Adoptive Cell Transfer vaccine), addresses one of oncology's most pressing challenges: preventing tumor recurrence and metastasis after surgical removal of cancerous tissue. Published in Advanced Functional Materials, the research demonstrates how this rapid-production vaccine successfully prevented tumor regrowth and achieved complete remission in 20% of treated subjects in preclinical studies.
Traditional adoptive cell transfer therapies, while promising, are limited by lengthy manufacturing times that can allow tumors to progress during treatment delays, said Professor Yiqing Wang from Nanjing University, who co-led the research with Professor Christopher J. Butch. Our approach transforms the patient's own removed tumor cells, which would otherwise be medical waste, into a powerful personalized weapon against cancer recurrence within just three days.
The ACT-vac system works through a three-step process. First, tumor cells removed during surgery are isolated and co-cultured with a modified strain of Salmonella typhimurium bacteria (VNP20009), which has shown favorable safety profiles in clinical trials. The bacteria-loaded tumor cells are then inactivated through flash-freezing and combined with L-arginine to create the final vaccine formulation.
When delivered via dissolving microneedle patches, the treatment triggers three synergistic immune mechanisms: reprogramming immune-suppressive macrophages into tumor-fighting cells, enhancing presentation of patient-specific tumor antigens, and generating nitric oxide that causes tumor cell death while releasing additional immune-stimulating signals.
What's particularly exciting is that this approach doesn't just prevent local tumor recurrence, but also elicits a robust abscopal effect that provides systemic protection against distant metastases, explained Professor Butch. The treatment essentially trains the patient's immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells throughout the body.
In mouse models of incompletely resected melanoma, ACT-vac treatment resulted in 92.7% tumor volume reduction compared to untreated controls. Remarkably, 70% of treated mice survived beyond the study period, with 20% becoming completely tumor-free. The treatment also demonstrated a systemic immune effect, successfully shrinking tumors at distant sites that were not directly treated.
The research team, which includes graduate students Tianliang Fang and Li Li as co-first authors, along with Shannen Wang and Jiaxing Li, collaborated with Professor Nie who contributed expertise in nanomedicine and cancer therapeutics to the project.
The microneedle patch delivery system offers additional advantages, providing stable, shelf-ready formulations that can be administered multiple times throughout a patient's treatment course. Looking ahead, the research team plans to expand testing across diverse tumor models and optimize dosing regimens for clinical translation. The approach represents a significant step toward making personalized cancer immunotherapy more accessible and effective for post-surgical patients worldwide.
This work exemplifies how biomedical engineering can transform cancer care by combining innovative materials science with deep understanding of tumor immunology, said Professor Wang. We're not just treating cancer; we're teaching the body to prevent it from coming back.
The research was supported by the Jiangsu Province Science & Technology Department and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
For more information contact: chrisbutch@nju.edu.cn
https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202510281