[mlyle]

Yup. Cutting out as much as possible is going to continue to be part of the standard of care for the foreseeable future, too.

But I don't think that synthesizing some custom mRNA per-patient is at all cost prohibitive.

Formulating a lot of different batches of mRNA in lipid nanoparticles made with different mRNA might be a little complicated now, but I don't think it's an intrinsically terrible manufacturing problem.

It'll be better if this kind of technique is turns out to be applicable to more cancers, because you need to reach enough doses for economies of scale and manufacturing optimization to really kick in.

[aantix]

There's no way to determine the properties needed by imaging alone?

[mlyle]

The immune system reacts to molecules on the surfaces of cells, not macro-level properties.

And even if you can get the immune system to react to the tumor, it's better if you've removed 99% of it, so that there's less opportunity for the tumor to evolve away from the immune reaction.

(Or, in the likely case that you just slow down growth of the tumor a lot: better to start out at a 99% smaller size).

[saalweachter]

Not a doctor (or even a biologist), but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a heavy lift to expect the immune system to break down a fruit-sized lump, or the lymphatic system to transport it away. So you may want to remove most of the mass physically, and just leave the immune system to mop up the remainder so it doesn't regrow.