By the time I finished my PhD 17 years ago, cancer vaccines were an exciting possibility that was discussed, but no-one knew if they’d work. Around that time, some of the technology required for making personalized neoantigen vaccines a reality was maturing. Specifically, high-throughput tumor sequencing and RNA synthesis were becoming reliable and cheap enough to make the idea seem plausible.
A few days ago, Moderna and Merck announced positive clinical trial results of Intismeran, their personalized neoantigen vaccine for melanoma. It’s the first positive Phase III clinical trial for this sort of therapy.
It’s not often that an idea, which less than 2 decades ago seemed like science fiction, becomes reality. It’s good to see it happening.
Nehaveigur 