Can mRNA vaccines treat cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
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mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now a new study points to their effectiveness in helping people survive cancer. The study looked at people who received a Covid vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy for lung cancer or melanoma, and demonstrated a huge survival benefit. Jeff Coller, an mRNA expert at Johns Hopkins, comments.
Coller: In addition to what we observed during the pandemic where they were so highly effective at preventing and treating infectious disease we're also seeing that they have an incredible ability to help the body fight cancer, and this study builds upon a growing set of data that really demonstrates that mRNA technology can help us cure and treat some of the most difficult cancers that human beings face, like melanoma and pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma. :27
People who had received the vaccine were more than twice as likely to be alive three years later than those who hadn’t. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.
