Key Takeaways:

  • mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may boost anti-cancer immune response.
  • Vaccinated cancer patients lived longer.
  • Supports the idea of a universal cancer vaccine.
  • Findings are preliminary and need clinical trials.
  • Results were presented at the 2025 ESMO Congress.

 

 

mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may help to mount an immune response that protects against certain types of cancer, say researchers in a new study. According to the research, advanced lung and skin cancer patients who received a dose of an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 within 100 days of starting a course of immunotherapy lived significantly longer than those who didn’t get vaccinated.

Scientists from the University of Florida and the University of Texas MD Anderson Center conducted the research, building upon prior work from Elias Sayour’s lab at UF. Sayour is a UF Health paediatric oncologist and Professor of Pediatric Oncology Research.

A universal cancer vaccine

The findings are significant in the field of mRNA cancer vaccine research, including in the search for a universal cancer vaccine that would amplify immune system in conjunction with other immunotherapies.

The idea behind a so-called ‘universal cancer vaccine’ is to boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer, propping up the anti-tumour effects of other immunotherapies like immune checkpoint inhibitors. The approach has been called ‘one-two punch’ against cancers.

“This could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care”

Back in July, Sayour’s lab reported the foundational finding for this study, which found that the immune system only needed to be ‘awoken’ to produce a strong anti-tumour response. Here, an anti-tumour immune response could be triggered by fighting a virus, rather than targeting the tumour specifically.

Sayour said: "The implications are extraordinary—this could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care. We could design an even better nonspecific vaccine to mobilize and reset the immune response, in a way that could essentially be a universal, off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients."

Old data, revisited

Researchers looked at over a thousand patients’ records from MD Anderson to reach their conclusion. These results are currently just preliminary and need to be validated in a randomised clinical trial. The team are now in designing such a trial.

The data was presented at the 2025 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress held in Berlin, a major moment in Sayour’s last eight years of research in mRNA.