Scientists have developed an adaptable materials platform that can safely and efficiently deliver a wide range of genetic medicines, a breakthrough that could accelerate the development of next‑generation vaccines, cancer treatments, and gene‑silencing drugs.

An international team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin and the Moffitt Cancer Center in the US has demonstrated a landmark “evolutionary double-bind” strategy to overcome treatment resistance in prostate cancer. 

Many patients with metastatic cancers receive therapy that is initially highly effective, often resulting in complete remission. However, cancer cells have a remarkable capacity to evolve resistance to currently available therapies. As a result, resistant cells eventually proliferate causing the tumour to recur, leading to treatment failure and ultimately patient death. 

In other words, increasingly the proximate cause of death in cancer patients is evolution, which sees the cancer cells adapt and overcome even highly effective treatments.

The new work found that when cancer cells successfully evolve resistance to DNA damaging treatments, they expose a critical weakness that makes them highly vulnerable to immunotherapy. This represents an “evolutionary double-bind” in which the cancer cell adaptation to one therapy makes them more vulnerable to another therapy and vice-versa.