Bioengineering Professor Hua Wang Awarded American Cancer Society Grant to Investigate mRNA-based Cancer Vaccine

The American Cancer Society (ACS) awarded Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) member and bioengineering professor Hua Wang a Research Scholar Grant to investigate a novel mRNA-based cancer vaccine. The ACS grant will support the Wang lab with $946,000 over the next four years.

The prestigious ACS grant is yet another notable award for Wang, whose young lab is garnering more attention in the national cancer research landscape. “We are very excited about this latest grant, because it affirms the critical cancer research we are focused on,” said Wang, professor of materials science and engineering. “As of yet, mRNA therapeutics have not been successful for cancer treatment. That’s the motivation for this project. The goal is to develop an mRNA vaccine with robust immune response and therapeutic benefit against various types of cancer, especially solid tumors resistant to existing therapies.”

CCIL member Hua Wang (center) is shown here with members of his lab at the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. Wang will lead a study of a novel mRNA-based cancer vaccine. (Photo credit: Fred Zwicky)

Wang’s mRNA-based cancer vaccine investigation aligns with the overall vision of his lab to harness the immune system’s capacities for the development of cancer immunotherapies. The CCIL has previously reported on the Wang lab’s relevant immunotherapy strategies with promise for personalized medicine, including their novel method for labeling dendritic cells, novel extra-cellular vesicle technology, the labeling and eradication of cancer stem-like cells, innovative biomaterial for cancer vaccine delivery, and biomaterials for T cell response. Several funding agencies in addition to ACS have affirmed Wang’s immunotherapy research progress, including the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.

“Cancer is complex. There is a great need for new immunotherapy strategies that can elicit potent and persistent cytotoxic T cell response with high therapeutic efficacy against solid tumors,” said Wang. “In this project, we will be working to develop such therapies with an mRNA-based approach, focusing first on triple negative breast cancer and glioblastoma.”

Wang’s mRNA-based cancer vaccine study aims to develop self-adjuvating 𝛼-helical polypeptides for mRNA delivery and dendritic cell activation, and further evaluate antitumor efficacy and safety of the polyplex cancer vaccines for treating solid tumors.

Wang’s frontier cancer research finds strength through interdisciplinary collaboration. Joining this project are CCIL members Shuming Nie, who brings expertise in nanomedicine, cell engineering, and clinical oncology, Xing Wang, with expertise in the design and application of mRNAs, Joseph Irudayaraj, with expertise in drug delivery, translational nanomedicine, intracellular mRNA quantification, and single cell analysis, and Hong Jin, with expertise in RNA biology, mRNA translation, and genomics. Collaborator Dr. Wael Mostafa, a neurosurgeon at Carle Hospital, will also provide the team with essential clinical perspective on the development of mRNA vaccines.

Editor’s notes:

Hua Wang is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and is an affiliate of the Department of Bioengineering, the Materials Research Laboratory, the Beckman Institute, the Carle College of Medicine, and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

To contact Hua Wang, email huawang3@illinois.edu

This story was written by Jonathan King, CCIL Communications Specialist.