Personalized vaccine shows promise against aggressive brain cancer (glioblastoma). People in early clinical trial had increased immune response, slowed tumor progression. The vaccine caused no serious side effects. One long-term survivor remains recurrence-free nearly five years later.

Personalized vaccine shows promise against aggressive brain cancer

Participants in early clinical trial had increased immune response, slowed tumor progression

A WashU Medicine-led clinical trial conducted at Siteman Cancer Center has found that a personalized vaccine to treat glioblastoma is safe and could potentially improve outcomes. Trial participant Kim Garland (left) reviews a scan with the study’s primary investigator, Tanner Johanns, MD, PhD, a WashU Medicine oncologist.

A personalized vaccine to treat glioblastoma, a fast-growing and incurable brain cancer that affects four in 100,000 people in the U.S., is safe and elicits robust and broad immune responses that appears to increase recurrence-free survival in a subset of patients after surgery, according to an early-stage clinical trial co-led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

In patients with an especially aggressive form of glioblastoma, the vaccine caused no serious side effects and prolonged patients’ overall survival compared to historical outcomes after standard-of-care surgery and chemo-radiotherapy. One long-term survivor remains recurrence-free nearly five years later.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-026-01163-w