A cancer vaccine carried into the body on a carefully engineered, fingernail-sized implant is the first to successfully eliminate tumors in mammals, a team of Harvard bioengineers and biologists report today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The new approach uses plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific antigens and implanted under the skin to reprogram the mammalian immune system to attack tumors. The journal article describes the use of such implants to eradicate melanoma tumors in mice.

“This work shows the power of applying engineering approaches to immunology,” said David J. Mooney, the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a member of the faculty of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. “By marrying engineering and immunology through this collaboration with Harvard Medical School associate professor Glenn Dranoff, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we’ve taken a major step toward the design of effective cancer vaccines.”