Santa Barbara, Aug. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Santa Barbara, CA, August 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CancerVax, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough universal cancer treatment platform that will use the body’s immune system to fight cancer, today announced that the Company has recently filed a new patent application which includes a Smart mRNA Technology. mRNA, short for messenger RNA, is the underlying technology that made the COVID-19 vaccine so effective and inexpensive.    

A big problem with current cancer treatments is that they are expensive, painful, and often have toxic side-effects that drastically affect a cancer patient’s quality of life. Harmful side effects from cancer treatments occur because the treatment kills both cancer and healthy cells. To prevent side-effects from cancer therapies and to improve patient outcomes, we need a cancer treatment that kills cancer cells while ignoring the healthy cells.

The Company’s new patent application describes a customizable nanoparticle that contains a Smart mRNA that can DETECT, MARK, and KILL only cancer cells. By forcing cancer cells to “look” like well immunized diseases such as COVID-19, measles or chickenpox, we intend to harness the body’s natural immunity to effectively kill cancer cells. For example, anyone who has had chickenpox, or been vaccinated for chickenpox, has lifetime immunity to the disease. We intend to activate and harness this natural immunity to fight cancer.

"We are very excited about our new patent application that covers our Smart mRNA Technology,” said Byron Elton, CancerVax CEO. “Each day we come to work, our team is driven to create a better way to treat cancer. Our new technology is designed to specifically detect and mark cancer cells so that the body and other drugs can precisely kill only cancer cells, thereby reducing the toxic side-effects of current treatments.”

Dr. Adam Grant, Principal Scientist at CancerVax and co-inventor of this new technology commented, “In the creation of this new technology, we have been using cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to identify genetic signatures that differentiate cancer cells from healthy cells. We can quickly load these signatures into our Smart mRNA for immediate lab testing. Not only does this speed up innovation, but it drastically reduces the current laborious and iterative process of drug discovery. Only recently have the scientific tools and data been available to allow us to discover and innovate this technology. As a computational biologist by training, I have watched the advancement of drug delivery systems over the years and the availability of next generation sequencing data sets grow to the point where we are now able to design new and exciting drugs that we believe can change the game in cancer treatments.”

Dr. Grant continued, “Our natural immune system is an expert at identifying and eradicating foreign pathogens. When a pathogen is eliminated from the body, our immune system actually remembers that pathogen, in case it infects the body again. Our Universal Cancer Treatment Platform harnesses this extraordinary capability of the immune system by marking cancer cells with something the immune system already knows, such as measles. This way, the immune system will be able to easily kill the cancer cells, just as it would with measles. In contrast to other cancer therapies, our technology employs the full power of the body’s immune system and has the potential to turn “cold” tumors into “hot” tumors, overcoming a major hurdle in treating cancer patients with existing immunotherapies. We look forward to validating our hypotheses using in-vivo models and refining our technology in the near future.”

About CancerVax

CancerVax is a pre-clinical biotech company developing a novel Universal Cancer Treatment platform that will be customizable, as an injection, to treat many types of cancer. Our innovative approach DETECTS, MARKS, and KILLS only cancer cells. By making cancer cells look like well immunized common diseases such as measles or chickenpox, we intend to use the body’s natural immune system to easily kill the cancer cells. We have also created our first cancer drug candidate – a single-disease specific immunotherapy targeting Ewing sarcoma, a rare but deadly bone and soft tissue cancer primarily affecting children and young adults. We look forward to the day when treating cancer will be as simple as getting a shot – a better way to treat cancer. To learn more, please visit www.CancerVax.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions regarding the future of our business, plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict, many of which are outside our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this release is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date it is made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.

Press Contact:
CancerVax, Inc.
Tel: (805) 356-1810
communications@CancerVax.com