The unprecedented success of messenger RNA vaccines against the coronavirus is raising hopes that the technology could lead to new and better vaccines against a much older public health scourge: cancer.
In some ways, the challenge is similar: The aim of any vaccine is to focus the immune system’s response against a particular molecule, or antigen, whether that’s a piece of a virus or a protein that coats tumor cells. There’s one important difference, however: Cancer vaccines are generally treatments rather than preventative measures…
