In concept, a vaccine properly targeted to an individual's unique DNA might activate the immune system to get at all the genetic variations of a tumor. This study suggests that might be true.
True. The mRNA technology makes it easy to tailor the immunogen that triggers the immune response against the offending tumor.
Immunotherapies have been developed along the same basic theory. Blood is drawn from the patient, infused with specific antigens that target the organ, and then reinfused to the body. This only works for cancers like breast, ovarian and prostate where the organ can be removed prior to treatment, to prevent an immune response attacking the whole organ and causing great inflammatory response. But in the case of say prostate cancer, if the prostate is removed, the treatment will then target remaining cells that may be in the blood stream or lymphatic system etc. Because it just target prostate cells, the antigens won’t damage other organs, cells, or lymph nodes but will prime the immune system to destroy any remaining circulating prostate cells - cancer or other - to prevent and eliminate metastases.
There was one for prostate cancer called Provenge, and it did get approved but it didn’t get wide adoption, and it was only approved for very advanced cases where primary treatments had failed. That made no sense to me, because the sooner you can treat the better the outcome and this was basically non toxic and well tolerated. And the data confirmed that it worked better when given early but the FDA and drug companies are bastards and made it difficult to obtain. It was very expensive. It still exists. Chinese ended up buying the rights.
My 14 year-old son is receiving just this type of personalized neoantigen vaccine for a sarcoma - tailored to his specific tumor. We have to regularly go overseas (Germany) to have him get it. He remains clear of disease 2 years after diagnosis. This is the future of cancer therapy.