More than 40 patients have now been selected for Russia’s personalized cancer vaccine program, with the first treatments already producing a strong immune response, Russian Federal Medical-Biological Agency head and former Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told RT’s Rick Sanchez on Wednesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2026, Skvortsova said the treatment uses artificial intelligence as a key weapon against cancer.
The vaccine is custom-made for each patient in a process that takes around 42 days. Scientists take material from the person’s tumor and blood, sequence the RNA, and use AI-driven predictive algorithms to compare the patient’s genome with that of the tumor in order to identify unique mutations. Once those targets are found, the vaccine introduces peptides that teach the immune system to recognize the same markers on malignant cells and selectively kill them, while leaving healthy tissue intact.
“We use the immune system to kill malignant tumor cells,” Skvortsova said. “It’s one of the most powerful weapons.”