Narrator: This is Science Today. The role of immunotherapy is becoming more of a possibility in treating cancer. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco are studying a tumor vaccine for advanced melanoma which Dr. Stanley Leong says stimulates a patient’s immune system by using their own tumor cells.

Leong: This is a group of patients with metastatic disease who have recurred after surgery or radiation therapy most of them have had chemotherapy and have not responded.

Narrator: Although only four out of 20 patients responded well to the tumor vaccine, Leong says the fact that two patients have achieved complete remission is a very encouraging sign.

Leong: Quite often, Chemotherapy is difficult to treat the recurrent tumor, so there’s quite a bit of urgency to develop new forms of treatment and if we can learn as much from melanoma, in terms of immune systems fighting against tumor, we’ll be able to apply these principals to these very virulent solid tumors.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.