Renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson on Friday hailed the discovery of a new cell therapy approach that could lead to a vaccine to treat brain cancer and bring about long-term immunity, telling Newsmax that for years, neurosurgeons have recognized that the cure for brain cancer would be immunological and not through surgical removal.
"This is very exciting," Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former President Donald Trump, said on Newsmax's "National Report." "Recognize that this research is being done in mice, so it'll be a while before we can apply it to humans, but their whole concept is exciting because, in the past, we've relied on surgery and radiation."
The process, detailed earlier this month by the Harvard Gazette, involves the use of cell therapy to eliminate established tumors while inducing long-term immunity by using cancer cells to train the immune system to keep the cancer from recurring.
The therapy is being developed by investigators at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. Corresponding author Dr. Khalid Shah said his team "pursued a simple idea: to take cancer cells and transform them into cancer killers and vaccines."
Shah added that by "using gene engineering, we are repurposing cancer cells to develop a therapeutic that kills tumor cells and stimulates the immune system to both destroy primary tumors and prevent cancer … our goal is to take an innovative but translatable approach so that we can develop a therapeutic, cancer-killing vaccine that ultimately will have a lasting impact in medicine."
The vaccine has been tested in an advanced mouse model of glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, and was determined to have promising results. The findings were published in Science Translational Medicine.
Carson said the treatment might prove successful "because brain cancer is very strange."
"You can see on the scan, for instance, a nodule or mass, but that's not really all of it. It has roots that extend far out into the brain and even go to the other side of the brain," he said. "That's why the traditional therapies have been unsuccessful. But with this, they've actually taken the cells and genetically altered the cells."
The vaccine would help solve a "big problem," according to Carson because it includes adding substances to help the patient's immune system identify the tumor and destroy it, and also prevent a recurrence.
"Sometimes people are very excited to get a good resection," he said. "The scan looks good, and a few months later, it's back again because those routes which have been infiltrated began to grow again … sort of like a double whammy."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.