This Vaccine Fights Deadly Brain Tumor in Small Clinical Trial

(HealthDay News) — An experimental cancer vaccine can quickly reprogram a person’s immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer, a small, preliminary study has found. The cancer vaccine is based on mRNA technology similar to that used in COVID vaccines, but in this case a patient’s own tumor cells are used to create a personalized vaccine, researchers said. The vaccine teaches the immune system to see tumor cells as a dangerous virus, prompting a vigorous immune response against the cancer, researchers said. One of the most impressive results was how quickly the injectable vaccine turns the immune system against a brain tumor, said senior researcher Dr. Elias Sayour, a pediatric oncologist with University of Florida Health who pioneered the new vaccine. In a first-ever human clinical trial with four adult patients, the vaccine prompted a quick and apparently effective immune attack on cancer. “In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’ — immune cold, very few immune cells, very silenced immune response — to ‘hot,’ very active immune response,” Sayour said in a university news release. “That was very surprising given how quick...