Given Months to Live, She’s Now a Five-Year Glioblastoma Survivor

Kyle Donahue, who was given months to live after receiving a diagnosis of glioblastoma in 2021, enrolled in a clinical trial at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Massachusetts, and is now a five-year survivor of brain cancer.

CURE sat down for interviews with Kyle Donahue and her husband, Jim, as well as Dr. E. Antonio Chiocca, Chair of Brigham's Department of Neurosurgery and lead researcher on the clinical trial.

In a news release issued in in October 2025, Candel Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, detailed interim data from the ongoing phase 1b clinical trial of CAN-3110 (linoserpaturev) in recurrent glioblastoma, which was also published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

In the second installment of a multi-part series, CURE spoke with Kyle Donahue to discuss the clinical trial that she enrolled in.

Transcript

Can you walk us through your experience participating in the CAN-3110 clinical trial, including what the treatment process was like and how it impacted you?

When I agreed to the clinical trial, and it was my turn, we discussed it, but the week is really difficult, as you may know. With the Candel drug that I got, the first day, you go in, have an MRI, that was Monday. The second day you have the chemo. And I had always just taken chemo pills, and this was a chemo infusion for about seven hours, that was Tuesday. Then they give you Wednesday off so you can feel sick all day long. And then you go back in for Thursday, and that's when you have the surgery. So I was fully aware of what was happening, but the Candel medication, CAN-3110, it saved my life. It really did, because I think it goes in first, and they described it as like a Pac-Man that goes in and eats all the cancer cells, and what it's trying to do is train your immune system to recognize them. And I'm happy for every single extra day that I I've gotten from this, because obviously it did train my immune system.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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