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DTN 176: A breakthrough in mRNA cancer vaccines

Plus: Zeno Power books its first nuclear mission to the moon, Anthro Energy breaks ground on solid state battery factory, self-driving trucks hit California highways, China lands Zhuque-3 rocket, first human trials of designer protein therapies, and more.

21 Aug 2026 — 7 min read

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In a first, an mRNA cancer vaccine succeeds in late-stage clinical trial

“A personalized messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccine slowed the return and spread of melanoma when used alongside Merck & Co.’s checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda in a first for the nascent cancer vaccine space.

Moderna and Merck, which are jointly developing the vaccine, announced the results in a press release on Wednesday. The drugmakers have not released detailed data, but they will present them at an upcoming medical conference.

The vaccine, intismeran, is a personalized neoantigen vaccine. It delivers mRNA that encodes tumor-specific mutations identified from a person’s previously removed tumor. That mRNA is bundled into a lipid nanoparticle before being delivered back into a patient to train their body to fight the tumor cells.

In the press release, Moderna and Merck say that the Phase 3 trial met its primary goal of recurrence-free survival, as well as a secondary end point of distant metastasis-free survival, in patients with completely resected stage IIB–IV melanoma. Those results mirror those of an earlier Phase 2 trial, in which the combination of intismeran and Keytruda reduced the risk of recurrence and distant metastasis by 49% compared with Keytruda alone, according to a presentation at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in June.” (via Chemical & Engineering News)

Columbia team modeled how cancer spreads to other organs using lab-grown bone and lung tissues. Credit: Steve Zill / Columbia Engineering

“Cancer metastasis is responsible for at least two-thirds of cancer deaths. Drugs targeting the metastatic progression have largely failed, in part due to the lack of predictive models that would help identify the underlying mechanisms of metastasis.

Now, new work reports the development of a multi-organ chip that mimics how cancer cells spread from vascular flow to distant organs—the first model of cancer metastasis of its kind. The chip includes compartments with millimeter-sized engineered human bone and lung tissues, and the vascular flow that contains circulating breast cancer cells and allows the dynamic cross-talk of the tissues being colonized.

The study sheds light on a critical phase of metastasis, known as organ colonization, which is difficult to study using animal models. The process is highly complex, requiring the cancer cells to evade tissue defense and adapt to the specific organs they invade.

The multi-organ chip allows scientists to investigate, in detail, metastatic progression with patient cells and tissues. The platform enables controlled experimentation of cancer cell-tissue interactions within organ-specific microenvironments, toward revealing molecular pathways and therapeutic targets for metastasis.” (via Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News)