British man tests first personalised skin cancer vaccine - Adomonline.com

An important trial of the world’s first “personalised” mRNA vaccine against the deadliest form of skin cancer – melanoma – is now under way in the UK.

Steve Young, 52, from Stevenage, Herts, who had a melanoma growth cut out of his scalp last August, is one of the first patients to try the shot.

And hopefully, that means his cancer will not return.

University College London Hospitals (UCLH) doctors are giving it alongside another drug, pembrolizumab or Keytruda, that also helps the immune system kill cancer cells.

It is created to match the unique genetic signature of the patient’s own tumour and works by instructing the body to make proteins or antibodies that attack markers or antigens found only on those cancer cells.

The musician had a lump on his scalp for many years before realising the growth was cancer

Phase II trial data, published in December, found that people with serious high-risk melanomas who received the jab alongside the immunotherapy Keytruda were almost half (49%) as likely to die or have their cancer come back after three years than those who were given only the drug.