Potential brain cancer breakthrough in new Covid-like vaccine that trains immune system to fight disease that killed Beau Biden

A groundbreaking new brain cancer vaccine could treat the most deadly and aggressive form of the disease, early research shows.

The shot trains patients’ immune systems to fight malignant glioblastoma, the type of tumor that killed the late Sen. John McCain and Beau Biden.

Like other experimental cancer vaccines under investigation, it contains bits of the patient’s own tumors – meaning no two injections are the same.

These cancer particles are designed to resemble a dangerous virus when reinjected into the bloodstream, causing the body to attack the remaining tumor in the brain.

The vaccine’s first human trial, which was tested in just four patients, showed it produces a strong immune response two days after injection.

Developed by researchers at the University of Florida, it uses the same mRNA technology developed during Covid.

The breakthrough means that scientists can now test the vaccine on a larger group of brain cancer patients.

About 24 people will be recruited for the next part of the process.

Senior study author Elias Sayour, a UF Health pediatric oncologist, said, “In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors go from what we call ‘cold’ – immune cold, very few immune cells, a very silent immune response – to ‘hot,’ very active immune response.

“That was very surprising given how quickly this happened, and what that told us is that we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very quickly against these cancers, and that is critical to unlocking the later effects of the immune response.”

Glioblastoma has an average survival of about 15 months, and the current standard of care includes surgery, radiation, and a combination of chemotherapy.

Researchers say the discovery represents a potential new way to activate the immune system to fight notoriously treatment-resistant cancers, using an iteration of mRNA technology similar to Covid-19 vaccines.

However, there are two key differences: the use of a patient’s own tumor cells to create a personalized vaccine, and a newly developed complex delivery mechanism within the vaccine.

In the group of four patients, genetic material called RNA was extracted from each patient’s own tumor, and then messenger RNA, or mRNA — the blueprint of what’s inside every cell, including tumor cells — was amplified.

It was then wrapped in the newly designed vaccine to make the tumor cells resemble a dangerous virus when reinjected into the bloodstream and trigger an immune system response.

The study results reflect those of ten canine patients suffering from naturally occurring brain tumors, as well as clinical studies in mice.

While it is still too early to assess the vaccine’s clinical effects, patients in the new trial either lived disease-free for longer than expected or survived longer than expected.

Dr. Sayour said: ‘I’m hopeful that this could be a new paradigm for the way we treat patients, a new platform technology for the way we can modulate the immune system.

‘I’m hopeful about how this could now synergize with other immunotherapies and perhaps unlock those immunotherapies.

‘We have shown in this paper that you can actually achieve synergy with other forms of immunotherapy, so perhaps we can now have a combination approach to immunotherapy.

The research has been published in the journal Cell and comes after the trial for the world’s first personalized mRNA cancer shot for melanoma was announced.

The jab also has the potential to stop lung, bladder and kidney cancer.

It is tailor-made for each person in just a few weeks and works by telling the body to detect cancer cells and prevent the deadly disease from returning.

A phase 2 trial of the jab, involving pharmaceutical companies Moderna and MSD, found it dramatically reduced the risk of the cancer returning in melanoma patients.

Now a final phase 3 trial has been launched.