Michael Bryan recognised with prestigious award for work on cancer vaccines
DPhil student Michael Bryan has been awarded the prestigious British Neuro-Oncology Society (BNOS) Young investigator Award for 2026. Co-sponsored by Brain Tumour Research, the award recognises young researchers who have made outstanding contributions to neuro-oncology in the UK.
Michael is currently completing the research component of his DPhil at New College, where he investigates how we can use artificial intelligence and computational biology to design better personalised cancer vaccines for people with glioblastoma, the most common aggressive brain tumour in adults.
We spoke to Michael about his research and what this award means to him:
Every person’s tumour is genetically different. By analysing the DNA and RNA of an individual’s tumour, we can identify the unique changes that distinguish cancer cells from healthy cells. The challenge is deciding which of those changes will make the best vaccine targets. I develop computational tools that help predict which tumour-specific changes are most likely to be recognised by the immune system, and how tumours may evolve over time so we can design vaccines that remain effective for longer.
Ultimately, the goal is to make personalised cancer vaccines smarter, more precise, and more effective for patients.
What does it mean to you to be recognised with this award?
It’s a huge honour, especially because it comes from the British Neuro-Oncology Society, a community of clinicians, scientists and researchers whose work I have admired throughout my training. Research is very much a team effort, so this award reflects the support and mentorship I’ve received from colleagues at Oxford and from collaborators around the world.
It’s also encouraging because it highlights the growing excitement around applying computational approaches and AI to some of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment. It motivates me to keep pushing this work forward.
Where do you hope to evolve your research on cancer vaccines?
I hope to help bring computational vaccine design closer to the clinic. There is now an incredible amount of genomic, immunological and clinical data being generated, and I think we are only beginning to understand how to use it effectively.
In the future, I’d like to develop models that can integrate many different types of patient data to design vaccines that are increasingly personalised, anticipate how tumours might change during treatment, and identify the best combinations with other therapies. My long-term ambition is to build tools that help clinicians make better treatment decisions and improve outcomes for patients.
How will vaccines of this kind revolutionise the way we treat cancer in the future?
I think cancer vaccines have the potential to become an important part of cancer treatment, particularly as we become better at understanding each patient’s individual tumour.
Rather than treating every tumour in the same way, personalised vaccines allow us to tailor treatment to the unique biology of each person’s cancer. They also have the potential to work alongside surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and other immunotherapies, helping the immune system recognise and eliminate cancer cells more effectively.
There is still a great deal of work to do, and many important clinical questions remain. But advances in sequencing, artificial intelligence and immunology are bringing the field forward at an extraordinary pace. I’m optimistic that, over the coming years, personalised cancer vaccines will become an increasingly important part of precision cancer medicine.