British man tests first personalised skin cancer vaccine [Video]

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.

It is designed to help his immune system recognise and wipe out any remaining cancerous cells.

And hopefully, that means his cancer will not return.

The jab, mRNA-4157 (V940), uses the same technology as current Covid vaccines and is being tested in final-stage Phase III trials.

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

The combined treatment, made by Moderna and Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), is not yet available routinely on …