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When pathologist Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with glioblastoma, he knew exactly what the diagnosis meant. He had spent 35 years studying aggressive cancers.

Instead of just accepting the standard treatment protocol, he turned his own brain into a live clinical trial.

He and oncologist Georgina Long had already changed how the world treats advanced melanoma using immunotherapy. They adapted that exact science for his brain. He took experimental drugs while the tumor was still inside his head. The goal was to teach his immune system how to recognize the cancer before surgeons removed it. It had never been done this way for glioblastoma before.

The treatment did not save his life. He died knowing that was always the most likely outcome.

But by publicly logging every scan, biopsy, and biological reaction, he handed researchers an unprecedented map of how brain cancer responds to these drugs. A major clinical trial based entirely on his approach has already begun in the US. He spent his career saving patients. His final act was making sure his own death might save even more.