Ask HN: Personalized mRNA cancer vaccines, how real is the pipeline today?

5 pointsposted 10 hours ago
by imnotlost

Item id: 47535533

4 Comments

nextos

9 hours ago

The problem with mRNA vaccines for cancer is effectiveness. Vaccines already work well for prevention of relapses in e.g. tumors that have been surgically removed.

They might also be great combined with early-stage detection via ctDNA.

But in late-stage patients, the effectiveness is limited because the host immune system is compromised.

Several landmark mRNA cancer vaccine trials by BioNTech and others have pointed in this direction.

In vivo reprogramming of T cells might be the next frontier. In fact, the BioNTech founders are moving to a new venture, but it's unclear what their thesis is.

MostlyFragile

3 hours ago

CAR-T recipient here! It's been a cure some some bleak cancers. Very much a game changer with seemingly a lot more to uncover with it before we move onto something else. Unfortunately for me, mine resides in bone which is hard to traverse.

PaulHoule

10 hours ago

I’d be mostly concerned about testing that it dowsn’t have side effects. You probably can do a lot in vitro, but you need a platform to do it.

brewcejener

10 hours ago

Given the tremendous success of the covid mRNA campaign it's surely right around the corner.