Hey guys.
[Reporter] When you've gone through what Brad Cramer has gone through
every small moment means everything.
[Brad] We haven't had smores in a couple weeks.
Never in the light.
[Reporter] But Brad's life turned upside down
after he noticed an unusual spot on his left leg.
[Brad] There was two spots.
One was like the size of a quarter and --
[Wife] They were growing fast.
[Reporter] For weeks he didn't think much of it
but when he got it checked out he got the worst kind of news.
[Brad] Oh, I was devastated.
I mean I don't think I really knew enough about melanoma
to really understand how serious it was.
[Reporter] And Brad's skin cancer was spreading.
Immunotherapy did work for a while
until it suddenly didn't.
[Brad] My cancer was so aggressive that they told me
if my body did not respond to the medicine
that I would have had six to nine months to live.
I was watching you every day get weaker.
And it was scary.
[Reporter] But look at him.
He doesn't seem sick does he?
He doesn't feel it either.
Today, Brad is a living, breathing beacon of hope.
He's currently part of a phase one clinical trial for a cancer vaccine
and the technology behind it is strikingly similar to something we've heard a lot about.
After months of research and clinical trials the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine delivery underway.
Biotech company Moderna as well as Pfizer and BioNTech
have been working on what's called an mRNA delivery approach to a vaccine.
[Reporter] It's at the University of Pennsylvania
work on messenger RNA laid the foundation for the most promising COVID vaccines we're seeing roll out around the world today.
Drew Weissman is part of a team of biochemist pioneers
who led that work.
He's even got patents on it.
The main thing is that RNA is really a plug-and-play technology
so you can make any vaccine you want
or any therapeutic protein you want
with the exact same procedure.
[Reporter] Here's how an mRNA vaccine works:
It gives the body a set of genetic instructions to make specific proteins.
In the case of a COVID vaccine
it's teaching the body to make spike proteins
identical to the ones the coronavirus uses to break into our cells.
On their own they're harmless
but the body learns to identify them
so when the coronavirus comes knocking it knows how to attack.
We're also working on cancer vaccines.
They of course are trickier
because cancer cells are our own.
So it's very tricky to make a good cancer vaccine.
[Reporter] But they're trying
and in Brad's case
he was willing to give it a shot.
The cancer had spread to his back.
His bones were literally breaking.
So he showed up to hospital once a week for an infusion of this experimental vaccine.
The reaction was always --
it was always the same thing.
My temperature would go up
and I would literally start shaking
and I would tell you within five to ten minutes I was back to complete normal
and the temperature would come down
And so you were mentioning those spots
the quarter and nickel-sized spots on your leg.
What do those spots look like today?
They're gone. they don't exist.
[Reporter] Now Brad is taking other cancer medication with the mRNA vaccine
so the science isn't certain which part of his treatment is doing most of the work
or how long the results will last
but the speed of his recovery, astonishing
and stop for a moment to consider what else might be possible.
I think the development of that infrastructure will open up a vast array of possibilities.
[Reporter] Matthew Miller is a biochemist at McMaster University.
He says think beyond conventional vaccines.
The way they're made
also what they could treat.
Infectious diseases like HIV or potentially a universal flu vaccine
that could protect us against all flus.
Things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, for example
are other examples where mRNA vaccines may have utility.
It sounds like you're saying mRNA is kind of like the skeleton key
that could potentially unlock every disease.
I mean is that right?
Yeah
and I think it's certainly true that mRNA vaccines are likely to revolutionize our ability to vaccinate
against a lot of different diseases.
To 202.
[Reporter] The mRNA revolution
a new beginning for Brad.
I am in remission
and that there are no measurable cancer cells left in my body.
That sounds unbelievable.
[Brad] I can't tell you how great it felt to hear that news.
[Reporter] To be clear, he still isn't home free
but he's home
and for now that's more than good enough.