Phages Hijack Vaccine Immunity to Kill Mouse Tumors
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- Amin Hajitou at Imperial College London led the study, genetically engineering an E. coli-infecting phage to bind tumor-specific integrins (αvβ3 and αvβ5) and deliver instructions for a malaria antigen.
- In 60 mice with skin tumors, the 15 given a malaria vaccine followed by six phage injections saw tumors eradicated in 44% of animals — with no recurrence a full year later when the study ended.
- The remaining treated mice lived longer than all three control groups (untreated, vaccine-only, and phage-only), none of which showed any survival benefit.
- David Withers at the University of Oxford said the systemic delivery is the key advance, since oncolytic viruses must be injected directly into tumors, making metastatic disease essentially untreatable with current approaches.
- Hajitou said the principle exploits pre-existing immune memory and is not unique to malaria, meaning stronger vaccines like seasonal flu or covid should work even better.
- Researchers are in talks with the UK's MHRA about launching an early-stage human trial, which they hope to begin next year.
- The study was published in Biomaterials (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2026.124286).
Why it matters: If human trials succeed, this approach offers a systemically administered immunotherapy that piggybacks on routine vaccinations — potentially reaching metastatic tumors that current oncolytic viruses can't access because they require direct injection. For the large share of cancer patients who don't respond to existing immunotherapies, redirecting pre-existing immune memory toward tumors would represent a new treatment class built on a delivery mechanism that is already regulator-approved in vaccine contexts.
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