Examining Nanoparticle Formation in Microgravity for Improved Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines

June 5, 2019 • By Amelia Williamson Smith, Staff Writer

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is going to space to try
to address one of the biggest health challenges on Earth: Cancer.

The health and economic burden from cancer is staggering and
is increasing each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer were reported in the U.S. in 2015, and almost
600,000 people died from the disease. The Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality estimates that in 2015, the total health care costs for cancer in the
U.S. reached $80.2 billion.

In an investigation that launched on SpaceX’s 17^th commercial resupply services mission, AstraZeneca is leveraging the microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment. environment of the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) U.S. National Laboratory to advance a nanoparticle drug delivery system for therapeutic cancer vaccines with improved drug formulations that work with greater efficacy and fewer side effects. The experiment returned to the ground earlier this week onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and will be returned to AstraZeneca for analysis.

Using Nanoparticles
as Targeted Drug Carriers

Therapeutic cancer vaccines are a type of immunotherapy that
help treat cancer by strengthening the body’s immune response against cancer
cells. Cancer immunotherapy has shown great promise, but several challenges
remain. For example, it has been difficult to produce vaccines that provoke a
strong enough immune response against cancer cells, and side effects from immunotherapy
drugs have also posed challenges by promoting immune responses against
non-cancer cells.

Nanoparticle drug delivery systems—in which solid particles or
liquid droplets containing a therapeutic drug are encapsulated in a shell—could
help address these challenges. Such nanoparticles deliver the desired
concentration of the drug directly to the tumor site in a sustained
controlled-release manner, which provides many advantages over traditional
therapies that require multiple doses. Nanoparticle drug delivery systems can
help strengthen immune activation, enhance efficacy, and reduce side effects of
therapeutic cancer vaccines.

AstraZeneca aims to study nanoparticle formation in
microgravity to better understand properties such as particle size and
distribution,
which are key factors in developing effective nanoparticle drug delivery
systems. By evaluating nanoparticle formation on the ISS National Lab, the
company hopes to identify opportunities to optimize the nanoparticle manufacturing
process to develop improved nanoparticle formulations.

Such improvements could result in therapeutic cancer vaccines with higher efficacy and fewer side effects, providing significant benefits for patients in terms of survival and quality of life. Optimization of the fabrication process may also lead to reduced manufacturing costs, which could help expand patient access to therapeutic cancer vaccines through reduced costs to both the health care system and to patients. This investigation is the first of multiple research projects AstraZeneca is planning to conduct on the ISS National Lab. A second investigation from AstraZeneca planned for launch later this year aims to study the effect of microgravity on the production of monoclonal antibodies, another type of therapeutic drug used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.