Covid mRNA vaccine may be used to fight cancers of the lung or skin

The breakthrough mRNA vaccine that enabled the world to fight Covid19 may also be used to fight cancers of the lung or skin according to a studyResearchers from the University of Florida and the University of Texas called it a defining moment in a decadeplus of research testing mRNAbased therapeutics designed to wake up the immune system against cancerIn their study presented at the ongoing 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Berlin the team shared that the patients with advanced lung or skin cancer who received a Covid19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy drugs lived significantly longer than those who did not get the vaccineThe findings from an analysis of more than 1000 patients records are preliminary but if validated in a randomised clinical trial now in design the study could have a widespread clinical impactThe implications are extraordinary this could revolutionise the entire field of oncologic care said senior researcher Elias Sayour paediatric oncologist at the University of FloridaWe could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilise and reset the immune response in a way that could essentially be a universal offtheshelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patientsShort for messenger RNA mRNA molecules are found in every cell and carry the genetic information needed to make proteinsTo find out if the Covid mRNA vaccine works like the nonspecific vaccine the team analysed existing data from patients with Stage 3 and 4 nonsmall cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma treated at MD Anderson from 2019 to 2023The most dramatic difference was seen in patients not expected to have a strong immune response based on their tumours molecular makeup and other factorsThe results from this study demonstrate how powerful mRNA medicines truly are and that they are revolutionising our treatment of cancer said Jeff Coller a leading mRNA scientist and professor at Johns Hopkins University USThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever