In a landmark retrospective study published in Nature by Grippin et al. (2025), researchers at MD Anderson found that cancer patients with NSCLC or melanoma who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine shortly after initiating anti-PD-1 checkpoint therapy had nearly doubled overall survival compared to those who did not. This dramatic benefit is attributed to innate immune activation, partly via TLR7 agonism – induced by the mRNA vaccine.
