Lisa Jarvis, Columnist

This Brain Cancer Breakthrough Should Excite You

Glioblastoma has been a death sentence. Now scientists have found a way to shrink those deadly tumors.

March 16, 2024 at 12:00 PM UTC

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

Buh-bye
Photographer: New England Journal of Medicine, “Intraventricular CARv3-TEAM-E T Cells in Recurrent Glioblastoma,” Choi et al, 2024.

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A flurry of new studies suggest scientists are finally figuring out how to harness the immune system to attack a ruthless form of brain cancer. While preliminary, the results offer hope that progress is possible against glioblastoma, the terrible form of cancer that so swiftly took the lives of Arizona Senator John McCain and President Joe Biden’s son Beau.

But the studies, while astonishing, are small. What’s needed next is an urgent effort to prove the effect can allow people to live longer and better — and to explore how it can be extended into other types of cancer.