Nanovaccines derived from pre-chemotherapy tumors.

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-nanovaccine-derived-pre-chemotherapy-tumors.html

Ideas like this have been circulating since at least the 1990s, when I first studied the biology of cancer during my father's terminal illness. Immunotherapies that target a patient's own cancer are ultimately more promising because they account for the diversity of genotypes and phenotypes in each patient’s cancer. The immune system is adaptive and capable of tracking the evolution of tumor cells, making it an ideal mechanism for personalized treatment.

Unfortunately, this kind of development has been roadblocked by the structure of the pharmaceutical industry. Companies focus on producing single, patentable molecules that are not naturally occurring and can be mass-manufactured for all patients. However, cancers are inherently individual. What’s needed is not a mass-produced product but a custom-made vaccine derived from the patient’s own tumors. This is more of a medical procedure than a patentable product and would need to be developed and administered in hospitals and labs rather than in large bioreactors, purified, and shipped globally.

While this approach is not particularly difficult to implement from a technical perspective, it is not supported by our corporate medical and legal systems. I suspect that the first people to routinely use such procedures will be underground biohackers, who are likely to face persecution as quacks rather than recognition for their innovation.

Source: Phys.org article on nanovaccines derived from pre-chemotherapy tumors