Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Oct 20: The mRNA technology that helped combat the global COVID-19 pandemic may now offer new hope in the fight against cancer, particularly lung and skin cancers, according to a new study presented at the 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Berlin.

Researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Texas reported that patients with advanced lung or skin cancer who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy showed significantly improved survival rates compared to those who did not receive the vaccine.

The findings are based on a retrospective analysis of over 1,000 patients with Stage 3 and 4 non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic melanoma, treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center between 2019 and 2023.

Although still preliminary and awaiting confirmation in an upcoming randomised clinical trial, researchers say the results could have transformative implications for cancer care.

“The implications are extraordinary — this could revolutionise the entire field of oncologic care,”

said Dr. Elias Sayour, senior researcher and paediatric oncologist at the University of Florida.

Sayour suggested that this immune-activating effect could pave the way for a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine, using mRNA to nonspecifically “wake up” the immune system to better respond to cancer cells.

The most striking improvements were seen in patients whose tumour profiles indicated a poor immune response, suggesting that the mRNA vaccine may have played a critical role in resetting and enhancing immune activity during immunotherapy treatment.

“The results from this study demonstrate how powerful mRNA medicines truly are and that they are revolutionising our treatment of cancer,”
said Jeff Coller, a prominent mRNA researcher and professor at Johns Hopkins University.

mRNA (messenger RNA) molecules exist naturally in cells and carry instructions for producing proteins. The same platform was used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, which trained the immune system to recognise and fight the coronavirus.

This new study raises the possibility that mRNA-based vaccines could eventually serve as broad immune modulators, enhancing the effects of cancer treatments beyond targeted or personalised therapies.

If confirmed in larger, controlled trials, this approach could represent a major leap forward in immuno-oncology, especially for patients with limited options or poor prognosis.