Reuters reports "a major success in a new field of cancer treatment this week, as Moderna and Merck announced a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine "reduced the risk of recurrence and spread of melanoma in a late-stage trial". The vaccine was tested with Merck's widely used immunotherapy drug Keytruda: Thousands of patients who have undergone surgery to remove high-risk melanoma tumors could benefit as soon as next year if regulators approve the vaccine, Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in an interview. This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient's immune system to fight tumors by targeting specific mutations in those cells, and the first such study to show that adding a treatment to Keytruda worked better than that therapy alone... Interim results of the ongoing study, released on Wednesday, found the treatment, Intismeran, met both its primary target of reducing cancer recurrence and its secondary goal of preventing tumors from spreading to other parts of the body, compared with Keytruda alone. When the vaccine is injected into a patient, the patient's cells produce copies of mutations for the immune system to recognize and destroy... Merck said the companies are already in talks with regulators about the treatment. "Merck, Moderna and other companies are testing similar approaches against lung, breast and pancreatic cancers," the article points out. It adds that Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, "said the Moderna results could signal a new era for treating solid-tumor cancers." More from CNN: The trial result is "a monumental leap forward," validating mRNA technology as a cancer treatment, said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology... Roche and BioNTech, whose mRNA technology was used in the Pfizer COVID vaccines, are testing a similar treatment called autogene cevumeran in mid-stage studies in colon and pancreatic cancer patients who have undergone surgery. Results of the colon cancer trial are expected in 2027, with pancreatic trial results to follow in 2031. "We should be hearing results from multiple studies over the next few years and there's every reason to hope now, with this news, that many of them will be positive," said Dr. Robert Vonderheide, director of Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center and president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research.

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Pour la première fois, une thérapie à ARNm conçue sur mesure franchit avec succès son grand test de phase 3, dans la perspective de la lutte contre le cancer de la peau. Développé par Moderna et Merck, ce traitement personnalisé réduit significativement le risque de récidive.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new medicines but also concerns over how to ensure the technology remains safe. The viruses are specific kinds known as bacteriophages, which only infect bacteria and are used around the world to treat patients with persistent infections. In lab tests, a cocktail of the AI-designed viruses killed E coli bugs that were resistant to natural bacteriophages. Dr Brian Hie, a chemical engineer at Stanford University in California, used genome language models, the genetic equivalent of the large language models behind AI chatbots, to design functioning genomes for bacteriophages. The viruses were then made in the laboratory and pitted against E coli in a dish. The ability to "rapidly design" genomes and tune them for specific bugs while overcoming resistance could "transform phage therapy" and "expand biotechnological toolkits," the researchers wrote in the journal Science. But beyond the potential benefits, the scientists said the work raised "important biosafety, biocontainment and biosecurity considerations" and urged others who were designing whole genomes to "consult both safety and security professionals throughout the project." In an accompanying article, Prof Tom Inglesby and Dr Moritz Hanke at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, reinforced the warning, writing: "Although this is promising for life sciences applications, it also raises urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions. The ability to compose viral genomes using generative AI now exists; the governance to safely steer it does not." Tom Ellis, a professor of synthetic genome engineering at Imperial College London, said the work was impressive, but revealed how hard it would be to make more complex genomes. "This is literally the smallest and easiest genome to make," he said. An AI trained on the genetic code of dangerous bugs could be used to design more harmful viruses, Ellis said, but controlling access to genetic data and having restrictions on making genomes that look dangerous would help. "Governments are working hard to do this already," he added. "But honestly," he said, "the threat from full AI design and writing of a genome of a virus or bacteria is very overblown when we consider that just taking existing pathogens and making gain-of-function changes to their genomes is so much easier and much more likely to be a real pathogenic threat." Dr Filippa Lentzos, a reader in science and international security at King's College London, said the most important point to intervene at the moment was when DNA was being manufactured. "It's important to see the bigger governance picture and not focus regulation solely on the AI model," she said. "A layered approach makes more sense: safeguards around model development and access, responsible research review, synthesis screening, and established laboratory biosafety and biosecurity."

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The FDA has approved the first mRNA flu vaccine in the United States after a clinical trial found it was about 27% more effective than a standard flu shot. Manufactured by Moderna and marketed as mFlusiva, the vaccine is expected to be available this fall for adults ages 50 to 64 and those 65 and older, though approval for the older group is conditional on Moderna conducting an additional clinical trial, NBC News reports. From the report: Many scientists and public health experts have touted the idea of an mRNA-based flu vaccine, which uses the same messenger RNA platform as the Covid vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer. That's because mRNA vaccines can be manufactured much faster than traditional vaccines, allowing scientists to better match circulating influenza strains. Moderna said it takes two to three months from picking the strain to rolling out its flu shot, compared with about six months for traditional flu shots.

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La branche logicielle du groupe français de défense a annoncé jeudi 23 juillet le rachat au suédois Nordic Capital de la plateforme américaine d’intelligence artificielle consacrée à la biotech ArisGlobal. Une façon de renforcer sa présence sur le marché convoité des sciences de la vie.

© PHOTO Sarah Meyssonnier/REUTERS