ITOC 2026 | Peripheral live cell vaccination improves survival in glioblastoma models
David Giles, MD, PhD, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, discusses the challenges of treating glioblastoma, which has a median survival of around 16 months. A novel live cell vaccination technology can gain new insights into treatment, and by using the same tumor cells as a vaccine at a peripheral site, combined with checkpoint blockade, mice can be cured of their brain tumors, demonstrating that a peripheral vaccination can have an impact on an intracranial tumor. This interview took place at 12th Immunotherapy of Cancer (ITOC) Conference in Munich, Germany.
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Transcript
Yeah, so I studied glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is a, unfortunately, devastating diagnosis. Median survival is around 16 months, even with the best treatments that we have today. And those treatments really haven’t changed for the last two decades or so. And so we need new ways to think about how can we treat glioblastoma. And so our approach for that is to try to use a novel technology to gain new insights...
Yeah, so I studied glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is a, unfortunately, devastating diagnosis. Median survival is around 16 months, even with the best treatments that we have today. And those treatments really haven’t changed for the last two decades or so. And so we need new ways to think about how can we treat glioblastoma. And so our approach for that is to try to use a novel technology to gain new insights. And that novel technology is a live cell vaccination. So what we found is that if you take the same tumor cells that you would normally implant in the brain as a model of glioma, you can actually take the same tumor cells and put them at the flank. And that works as an effective vaccine strategy. If you take that mouse, put them at the flank, and then treat with checkpoint blockade, you can effectively cure the mice of their brain tumor. And that answers a few critical questions that tells us that the response to the tumor is not the problem. And it tells us that you can actually have a peripheral vaccination have an impact on an intracranial tumor. And so we’ve used that now as a platform to investigate what is necessary in the immune response to effectively treat these brain tumors.
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