This scientist cured her cancer with experimental vaccine she grew in the lab, triggers fierce debate on ‘ethics’

Beata Halassy, 53, a seasoned infectious disease researcher, has sparked intense debate online after using an experimental vaccine she developed in her own lab to treat her cancer.   

In 2020, at the age of 49, Halassy discovered that she had breast cancer at the site of a previous mastectomy. It was the second recurrence in that area, and she was unwilling to undergo another round of chemotherapy.  

A virologist at the University of Zagreb, Halassy turned to the literature and decided to take matters into her own hands. Drawing on her expertise, she developed an unproven treatment by combining a measles virus with a flu-like pathogen to create a powerful shot designed to target the tumour directly while also boosting her immune system.  

Her self-treatment, known as oncolytic virotherapy (OVT), was documented in a case report published in August. Remarkably, Halassy has been cancer-free for four years since the treatment.  

By choosing self-experimentation, Halassy joins a long history of scientists who have engaged in this controversial and ethically complex practice. “It took a brave editor to publish the report,” she says.  

Although Halassy is not an OVT specialist, her expertise in virology and virus cultivation gave her the confidence to proceed. The treatment appeared to work: over the course of the therapy, her tumour shrank significantly, softened, and detached from surrounding tissue, ultimately making it easier to remove surgically. Post-surgery analysis revealed that the tumour was filled with immune cells, called lymphocytes, suggesting that the OVT had successfully stimulated her immune system to attack both the viruses and the cancerous cells.  

“An immune response was, for sure, elicited,” Halassy confirms. After surgery, she received a year-long course of trastuzumab, an anticancer drug. 

Stephen Russell, an OVT specialist and founder of the biotech company Vyriad in Minnesota, agrees that Halassy’s experience shows the viral treatment likely helped shrink her tumour and halt its spread. However, he notes that the real novelty of her case is the fact that she self-administered the therapy using a virus she had cultivated in her own lab.  

Despite the positive outcome, Halassy faced multiple challenges when seeking to publish her findings. She was rejected by more than a dozen journals, largely due to the ethical concerns surrounding self-experimentation.  

“The major concern was always ethical issues,” Halassy says. Her resolve to publish only grew stronger after encountering a review that underscored the potential value of self-experimentation in advancing medical knowledge. 

Jacob Sherkow, a law and medicine researcher at the University of Illinois, explains that while the issue is not with self-experimentation per se, publishing such results could set a dangerous precedent. He notes that cancer patients, in particular, may be vulnerable to trying unproven treatments. Still, Sherkow emphasizes the importance of ensuring that valuable insights from self-experimentation are not ignored. Halassy’s paper specifically warns that self-treatment with cancer-fighting viruses should not be considered a first-line approach. 

Halassy has no regrets about her decision to self-treat or her persistence in getting the research published. She believes that the highly technical nature of her treatment would make it difficult for others to replicate. The experience has also opened new avenues for her own research. In September, she received funding to explore OVT as a potential cancer treatment for domestic animals. 

Oncolytic virotherapy, an emerging field, uses engineered viruses to target cancer cells while stimulating the immune system to fight the tumour. While most OVT clinical trials have focused on late-stage, metastatic cancers, recent efforts have shifted toward using it for earlier-stage diseases.