Could adding a COVID-19 vaccination to immunotherapy lead to better outcomes for mesothelioma?

• Maja Belamaric
• Featured News
• November 13, 2025

A new study in Nature has sparked excitement among cancer researchers, revealing that immune therapies like nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) may be more effective when paired with an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. These immune checkpoint inhibitors work by releasing the natural restraints on immune cells, allowing them to recognize and attack cancer more efficiently.

The research highlights a surprising connection between mRNA vaccines, originally designed for COVID-19, and the performance of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Scientists observed that administering an mRNA vaccine encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein triggered strong immune activation, including a rise in type I interferons and stimulation of innate immune cells. This immune boost enhanced the priming of CD8+ T cells which act as key players in attacking tumor cells.

In animal studies, combining the vaccine with ICIs led to far greater tumor shrinkage than either therapy used alone. Remarkably, this effect was also seen in so-called “cold” tumors, which are usually resistant to immunotherapy.

The human data mirrored these results. Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) or melanoma who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting ICI treatment showed notably improved overall survival compared to those who had not been vaccinated during that window.

Tumor samples from these patients also revealed higher PD-L1 expression after vaccination, suggesting that the vaccine may help make tumors more visible to the immune system and more responsive to checkpoint inhibition.

These findings suggest a new way of thinking about vaccines as not just as tools for preventing infection, but as potential enhancers of cancer immunotherapy. While the study did not specifically focus on mesothelioma, the results are of great interest to mesothelioma researchers, as immune checkpoint inhibitors have already offered improved outcomes over traditional therapies, though their overall benefit remains limited.