a doctor told her she had this glioblastoma tumor the size of a tennis ball.the doctors tell you? >> your cancer's back. >> reporter: with recurrent glioblastoma there were no options except the one that had never been tried. ep volunteer for duke's experiment with the polio virus. the virus is the creation of molecular biologist mathias gromeier. gromeier reengineered the virus, removing a key genetic sequence. the virus can't survive this way, so he repaired the damage with a harmless bit of cold virus. this new modified polio virus can't cause paralysis or death because it can't reproduce in normal cells. but in cancer cells it does. and in the process of replicating it releases toxins that poison the cell. this process also awakens the immune system to the cancer that it had never noticed before. why didn't the immune system react to the cancer to begin with? >> so cancers, all human cancers, they develop a shield or a shroud of protective measures that make them invisible to the immune system. tried to reverse with our virus. so by infecting the tumor we

is what happened to stephanie lipscomb in 2011, diagnosed with the worst kind of brain tumor: glioblastomae became one of the first patients in duke university's cancer trial to be given, of all things, the polio virus, as a last chance to fight her disease. today, four years later, she is cancer free. and she's not the only one. >> this, to me, is the most promising therapy i have seen in my career, period. >> pelley: "60 minutes" has been following this daring experiment for more than two years. and now the federal government has given it rare "breakthrough

is what happened to stephanie lipscomb in 2011, diagnosed with the worst kind of brain tumor: glioblastoma she became one of the first patients in duke university's cancer trial to be given, of all things, the polio virus, as a last chance to fight her disease. today, four years later, she is cancer free. and she's not the only one. >> this, to me, is the most promising therapy i have seen in my career, period. >> pelley: "60 minutes" has been following this daring experiment for more than two years. and now the federal government has given itar

he was diagnosed with glioblastoma an aggressive usually deadly form of brain cancer. mri revealed a baseball sized tumor. doctors tried to remove it but were only able to get about 60 . >> they could not take the rest of it because it was wrapped around i guess crucial part of the brain. >> reporter: rick was told he had two to 15 months to live. >> it is devastating. you don't think of yourself at that point. you think of your kid. >> reporter: he decided to try a new treatment called optune that works with wave like electric fields. device powered by batteries in a backpack and uses 36 ceramic electrodes attached to the patient's head. they generate electrical impulses designed to kill dividing cancer cells in the the brain without harming healthy cells. >> you can have potential for cell to be realizing it is too much damage and then they become dead. >> reporter: treatment seems to be working. >> overall everything looks fantastic. >> reporter: scans show rick's tumor is still there but isn't growing. >> it means i get to spend one more day with my children. i get

that's encouraging for anybody with this horrible disorder called glioblastoma brain cancer. >> can you it a cure? >> i don't think so. again, we're reticent to use that word in my business. there are people who received this, who had dramatic responses and recurred. so in my business, cure equals, you know, 10, 20 years without the disease coming back. every day we offer somebody hope and quality of life with an advanced cancer is to me a policing. i just hold my hat on. that cure is something we don't want to talk about at the present time. >> yeah. it does sound promising. anything that gives people hope, we're always glad to see that. thank you very much. >>> and we should mention that the duke scientists are investors in the company created to market the treatment. that is not unusual. >>> coming up, new dangerous high-speed police chases. only on "cbs this morning." the james bond-like breakthrough. >>> if you're heading out, we want to come, watch us live through the cbs all-access yoap on your digital device. you dwoent want to miss the world-class chef that joins us at the tabl

. >> so, we're talking about the same tumor that ted kennedy had, it is a glioblastoma, it is or gbm short and it is a tumor that starts from cells in the brain. you think of this differently from tumors that let's say start from a lung cancer and spread up to the brain. >> so when it comes to the polio virus and not to get too technical here so basically they are taking out certain parts of the polio virus that make it a concern in order to combat brain cancer. >> so what they, first thing they do, first thing that the f.d.a. makes them do is be sure that the virus, which is essentially used as a vector to target the tumor is inactive, so in other word it the is not functioning polio. it should not cause the same kind of damage that polio would. >> so what do they do they take a polio vaccine from back in the 50's and 60's and inject that in your body somehow. >> actually no they take the virus itself. >> my goodness. >> and that is what makes it very risky and they in activate in that it shouldn't a act like polio anymore and that took years to demonstrate that they were able to do