Aug 26, 2026 · 27 min · 13 segments
In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett break down Merck and Moderna’s positive Phase 3 results for a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, a treatment custom-built from each patient’s own…
Brett WintonHostSam KorusHost
Nick GrousHost
So I mean, it's a can-- I think of a vaccine as something you take before you get a disease.
The reason it's called a vaccine is because if you've gotten a cancer, uh, and they, uh, do surgery on the cancer to take it out, um, then they can take a sample of that cancer, and they can compare it to a sample of your own blood, and they can say, "Well, what are the, um, kind of RNAs being expressed in this cancer? And can we, um, guess which ones are then, um, going to be visible on the outside of a cell?" Uh, and so then they, um, the patient who's had this cancer resected then gets a custom-designed, um, RNA treatment that causes, um, those things on the outside of the cell to be expressed inside the body, which causes the patient's immune system to be activated against those, um, um, neoantigens they're called, so that when the cancer comes back, the immune system is already charged up and ready to go and to attack those specific cells.
So it is a vaccine in that you're basically charging up your immune system to go after a specific disease, but in this case, it's the specific custom cancer that your body has generated.
Uh, and so w- it-- over the past week, they indicated that, um, in melanoma, their phase three trial had come out, Moderna's phase three tri-trial had come out very positive.
Um, and so that's both exciting for, um, aggressive melanoma patients, but it's also exciting because they have, you know, a number of these trials against different cancer types, um, on the offer.
So it means that, you know, one of the ones in trial is for stage one aggressive lung cancer, where you've done a surgery on it.
At stage one, it was localized to the lung, um, but then you can, um, kind of provide a custom treatment for this patient.
And so it, it promises to potentially, you know, mean that every cancer over time is actually treated with a custom treatment by patients, assuming they can scale up the manufacturer of these, uh, therapies.
So I mean, it's a can-- I think of a vaccine as something you take before you get a disease.
The reason it's called a vaccine is because if you've gotten a cancer, uh, and they, uh, do surgery on the cancer to take it out, um, then they can take a sample of that cancer, and they can compare it to a sample of your own blood, and they can say, "Well, what are the, um, kind of RNAs being expressed in this cancer? And can we, um, guess which ones are then, um, going to be visible on the outside of a cell?" Uh, and so then they, um, the patient who's had this cancer resected then gets a custom-designed, um, RNA treatment that causes, um, those things on the outside of the cell to be expressed inside the body, which causes the patient's immune system to be activated against those, um, um, neoantigens they're called, so that when the cancer comes back, the immune system is already charged up and ready to go and to attack those specific cells.
So it is a vaccine in that you're basically charging up your immune system to go after a specific disease, but in this case, it's the specific custom cancer that your body has generated.
Uh, and so w- it-- over the past week, they indicated that, um, in melanoma, their phase three trial had come out, Moderna's phase three tri-trial had come out very positive.
Um, and so that's both exciting for, um, aggressive melanoma patients, but it's also exciting because they have, you know, a number of these trials against different cancer types, um, on the offer.
So it means that, you know, one of the ones in trial is for stage one aggressive lung cancer, where you've done a surgery on it.
At stage one, it was localized to the lung, um, but then you can, um, kind of provide a custom treatment for this patient.
And so it, it promises to potentially, you know, mean that every cancer over time is actually treated with a custom treatment by patients, assuming they can scale up the manufacturer of these, uh, therapies.
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