Yes, mRNA vaccines are promising for many but not all cancer types, and there are many ongoing clinical trials. There's also a lot we yet don't know about how to design them.

Here's a great blog post on this, "How to build a cancer vaccine, and whether they will work this time": https://www.owlposting.com/p/how-to-build-a-cancer-vaccine-a...

Here's the blog post I wrote on personalized mRNA vaccines: https://hedonicescalator.substack.com/p/did-paul-conyngham-r...

mRNA is a general technique for targeted cancer therapy. It's the message RNA containing the instructions from a gene to create a specific protein. It's much easier to work with, reprogrammed, manufactured, and delivered. There're a number of approaches to use mRNA against cancer cells. One is using cancer related antigens, similar to the vaccine approach. mRNA is programmed to generate the antigen proteins in the body, which are attached to the cancer cells. The body's T-cells can then attack the tagged cancer cells.

The problem now is finding the correct antigens targeting the cancer cell type. Cancer cells are similar to health cells. You don't want to program a mRNA to generate antigen proteins that target health cells, which causes autoimmune problems.

Individualized immune cancer therapy has been touted as the next big thing for half a century. It's nothing new, and with few exceptions, such as skin cancer, has failed to yield much. scientists, for decades, have tired to harness the immune system to attackcancer and it almost never works.