Posted: 15 April 2024
Peter Mac researcher Dr Benjamin Blyth is studying how radiation therapy can trigger an immune response in the body the way a vaccine does.
Understanding this could lead to new treatments that optimise the use of radiation therapy alongside immunotherapy.
“What we’ve seen in patients is that sometimes [radiation therapy] is also able to wake up the immune system, and to have it fight cancer cells that are even outside the area of which we’ve used radiotherapy in,” Dr Blyth told Sky News this week.
“In a vaccine, we are trying to teach the body’s immune system how to best fight a disease and, in this case, we’re able to use the radiotherapy to sort of produce a vaccine within the body.
Dr Blyth’s work is supported by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation who have invested $1.8 million to support the purchase of cutting-edge technology – a mini version of a radiation therapy machine – to study the complex interactions that exist between radiation therapy and the immune system.
“The new machine essentially allows us to produce exactly the same type of radiotherapy protocol we would use in a clinical trial but to do it in a research setting,” Dr Blyth said.
“The ability to really harness the effects we are starting to see in the clinic, in the research setting, is really valuable for us to be able to answer those questions and to really bring new treatment options for patients.”
