RENTON, Wash., 08, 10, 2026 – Providence and Arizona State University launched a new collaboration focused on improving the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy through advanced mRNA vaccine technology. The Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) Nina Nicolai Innovation in Collaboration Award, a $225,000 research grant, supports work aimed at enhancing personalized T‑cell therapies for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest and most difficult‑to‑treat malignancies, by helping the immune system sustain a stronger attack against cancer cells.
The project brings together Dr. Eric Tran, a leading immunotherapy researcher at the Providence Cancer Institute, and Dr. Di Liu, an expert in RNA engineering at Arizona State University. Together, the team is developing a next‑generation mRNA vaccine designed to boost the power of engineered T cells used to treat hard‑to‑fight cancers.
While messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines are revolutionizing medicine and have saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, they have not been as effective in the treatment of advanced cancer. Part of this could be due to the structure of the mRNA molecules used in current vaccines which may not be optimal for stimulating the long-term T-cell responses required for eradicating cancer. To overcome this, the research team is designing new mRNA molecules to prolong T-cell responses even in the inflammatory environments that occur after mRNA vaccination and limit their effectiveness.
In 2022, Tran and the Providence team published in the New England Journal of Medicine the first proof-of-concept that engineered T cells could mediate regression of metastatic pancreatic cancer; however, patients were not cured. “This collaboration focuses on solving a major treatment bottleneck in cancer immunotherapy,” said Tran. “By enhancing how long and how well vaccines can stimulate T cells, we believe we can significantly improve the effectiveness of T‑cell therapies for patients with solid tumors.”
The research will test new mRNA molecules for their ability to generate protein under immune stress and enhance the killing ability of engineered T cells against cancer. These findings will help establish an mRNA platform that may pave the way for future clinical translation.
If successful, this work could unlock more effective mRNA‑based boosters for cellular cancer therapies and improve outcomes for patients with hard‑to‑treat cancers such as pancreatic cancer.
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About Providence
Providence is a national, not-for-profit Catholic health system comprising a diverse family of organizations and driven by a belief that health is a human right. With 51 hospitals, more than 1,000 physician clinics, senior services, supportive housing and many other health and educational services, the health system and its partners employ more than 120,000 caregivers serving communities across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, with system offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif. Learn about our vision of health for a better world at Providence.org.
