Mastodawn

Galen Feb 28, 2025

*Long, long sigh*

Trials for an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer have shown a 75% cure rate, when administered after diagnosis. Only 2 patients had their cancer return.

Life expectancy after diagnosis with PanCan, under conventional treatment, is less than a year.

My dad died from pancreatic cancer in 2018.

Im not going to do an explainer thread for why this is an incredibly big deal today. You can ask someone else, or read the study for yourself.

I miss my daddy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08508-4

RNA neoantigen vaccines prime long-lived CD8+ T cells in pancreatic cancer - Nature

In a phase 1 trial, patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who were treated with surgery and bespoke neoantigen mRNA vaccines combined with anti-PD-L1 and chemotherapy exhibited marked long-lived persistence of neoantigen-specific CD8+ T cell clones, which correlated with prolonged recurrence-free survival at a 3.2-year follow-up.

Nature

Riley S. Faelan Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I'm sorry for your loss.

In none of the dystopias that I have read was it foretold that by the time the Cure for Cancer wonder becomes available, there will be religious opposition to it, and schady shemes to make it illegal. https://publichealthcollaborative.org/alerts/pseudo-medical-organization-calls-for-suspension-of-mrna-vaccines/

Pseudo-medical organization calls for suspension of mRNA vaccines - Public Health Communications Collaborative

On November 26, the pseudo-medical organization World Council for Health reported that it had joined several European countries to call for the “immediate

Public Health Communications Collaborative

Riley S. Faelan Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Well, there's The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant, posing the important question of whom the dragon eats last, but that's more a meditation than an actual dystopian fantasy.

bituur esztreym Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD
yeah..
(just to share your sigh)

Lockpick Extreme Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD thank you for good news and I'm sorry about your Dad.

Stormgren Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD As someone living with T2DM that cancer is one of my biggest fears.

This gives me hope, so thank you for posting about it.

Abie Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Mine passed away in September 2023.
It's both painful & great news to read this.

Nadine Milde 🌍Feb 28, 2025

@temptoetiam @Impossible_PhD

Same.
Lost my dad to it in 2021.

Michael ☕️Feb 27, 2025

@Impossible_PhD
🫂
I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer in 1992. She thought she was developing diabetes, but then it was all over so suddenly. It's a horrible disease.

M.S. Bellows, Jr.Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Thanks for sharing this. I'm sorry for your loss. My wife is leaving tomorrow for the memorial for her wonderful sister who died of pancreatic cancer last week. I sure hope this new therapy pans out!

Oregon Wine Woman Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD
💔🙏🏼

The Polish Dispatch Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I remember reading about Pfizer/BioNTech clinical trials for mRNA vaxx PDAC treatment in 2023, shortly after my mom was diagnosed.
This is immensely important and a huge breakthrough.
Extraordinary work by both BioNTech and MSKCC researchers.

https://www.mskcc.org/clinical-updates/custom-mrna-vaccines-pancreatic

Custom mRNA Vaccines for Pancreatic Cancer

Cancer vaccines that use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology are an exciting new approach to develop immunotherapies for cancers with poor prognoses, such as pancreatic cancer.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

LisPi Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD @cinnamon Oh, those are two interesting bits of health news today.

Treatable pancreatic cancer and treatable Long-Covid mitochondrial dysfunction (potentially, replication should probably be done).

Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋Feb 28, 2025

@lispi314 @Impossible_PhD @cinnamon Hey, could you link me to the second one? I can't find anything relevant

LisPi Feb 28, 2025

@mackuba @cinnamon @Impossible_PhD https://academic.oup.com/jes/article/8/5/bvae043/7623484

KnittingMittens (She/Her)Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Pancreatic cancer is devastating. I'm sorry for your loss, and also hopeful that this will save lives. ❤️

webhat Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD mine died from pancreatic cancer round the same time

I miss my daddy too 😔

I'm so sorry for your loss 💜

Gay Antifa Leftist Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD huge news

Faith, Purple haired feminist 🧋

@Impossible_PhD

people_hugging_purple

Ruth O’Day Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD

::hugs offered::

I hope that good memories help bring you some solace and even some joy.

Jargoggles Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD
I miss my grandma. We lost her to that awful disease, too.

Here's hoping this will help a lot of people not have to miss their loved ones too soon.

okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD
Both terrible and wonderfull. I'm so sorry for your loss, so happy there may be a cure for this killer.

Lady Helen "Bio" Rodriguez Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I always promised that I wouldn't be bitter when something like this comes around that it's too late to save my mom. She wouldn't want me to be angry.

Part of me is a little bitter I can't lie. But I am really glad that less people will need to suffer

Im sorry Zoe. Really I understand too well how much this just takes your heart and soul.

Joe ❌👑Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD My father also died of pancreatic cancer. They didn't figure out what he had until it was way too late. Sorry that this wasn't sooner.

Howard Chu @ Symas Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD yeah...

My g/f died of cancer 6 months ago. I saw an article about a successful treatment 2 months ago.

TanruNomad Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Too late to have saved my mom but glad if others can benefit from this and prevent this horrible, horrible, rapid growing cancer.

wbpeckham Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD 1/2 My wife died 15 March 2024, not from the cancer, but from the chemo. Chemo is poison that you pray kills the cancer without killing you, And they have refined it to make it really very good, but not perfect. There are five different new treatments in total all related to this one that are still in testing and not approved yet, but they run between 75 and 85% effective.

wbpeckham Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD 2/2 Although they do similar things, they do them in different ways, so if one of them fails, you could try another. Pancreatic cancer has a 5-year survival rate of 3.4% if chemo is successful. If the MRNA based treatments are successful, you cannot die of that cancer. Ever! Game changer, once it is approved and available as standard treatment. Just to late for too many.

DoNotPunchDown Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD

🤗♥️

Whine Spectator Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD @baroquebobcat 🫂

Patch You Up Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Awesome news! Unfortunately, too late for many, and I'm terribly sorry for your loss.
One thing I'm curious about, and couldn't find in the paper: does anyone know what stage these were tested in? I noticed that they used this in combination with surgical resection and other chemo, but didn't see any info on the initial severity of the disease.

LCWebsXOXO [mod]Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD 🫂

Geph, The Hobbyist Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD My dad participated in a couple different studies for prostate cancer from 2007-2010, before ultimately passing in September '10. Today, prostate cancer is more detectable, and more easily treatable.

It's never fair. It's never easy. And I'm sorry you had to go through this, too. Some day, hopefully, this form of suffering will be eradicated, and we can all breathe a big sigh of relief.

I also miss my dad.

Mike Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD

Yeah, but vaccines

roland Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD 3 days for my mother in 2013. I hope this vaccine is as good as it sounds and saves some folks from pancreatic cancer. Go science go!

r4gni Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD This is amazing! And I understand how this sucks. While my mum was dying from her breast cancer returing as lung and bone cancer, we were constantly hoping for her to stabilize and make it for a breakthrough in research.

Ellen 🎈Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD @dkozlov

Thomas Sturm Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD @jannem My mom also died of pancreatic cancer six years ago. Diagnosed, six months to go. Gone.

This is incredible news for so many.

Vulpine Labs Inc.Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD this is incredibly good news

But it would be also a good idea to have a device that can adapt that mrna or produce gene editing vectors to fight or prevent every type of cancer

Doc Impossible Feb 28, 2025

@vulpinelabs There's a giant host of mRNA vaccines in trials now to eliminate cancers of many types, as well as a wide variety of cardiovascular diseases.

But a magic box that just popped out a vaccine is the realm of science fiction for the time being. For now, we need rigorous testing.

Vulpine Labs Inc.Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD a comprehensive combined modular bioinformatics, simulation and personalized gene editing vector design and production system with harmoniously developed software, hardware and wetware is not sci fi, it's just difficult (and the simulation part is to do in silico testing specific to the individual). But sure, to those who don't understand it, it might resemble amagicbox.
But it's also potentially computationally intense considering how much folding@home took (also covid deniers tried to make the covid vaccine look bad because how quick it was released but it was the funding and work put into it that allowed it to be released quickly and folding@home did some of the work that helped but it was a software that allowed a large network of computers work together on folding proteins)
It would be 27 modules with 520 sub modules worth to do in software alone to do what is being done
But the hardware is also difficult due to how precise it needs to be on top of it supposed to being easily accessible

Vulpine Labs Inc.Feb 28, 2025

Had to scrunch this due to char limits

Doc Impossible Feb 28, 2025

@vulpinelabs Jesus christ, that word salad.

No. Just, no. I have a doctorate with a specialization in biomedical communication, and family that works *directly* in vaccine and experimental drug development. You did *not* just drop into my comments to reply guy techbro at me, and doubly so in a thread responding to the death of my fucking father.

Take your douchebaggery and get the *fuck* out of here. Never darken my doorstep again.

Phosphenes Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD

I don't know anyone who had pancreatic cancer, but every time I *heard* of someone getting it, it was an instant death sentence. A 75% cure rate is incredible.

So sorry your dad didn't live to see this. I've had family die of things that were curable after they died, too. 😔

Roj 🏳️‍🌈Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD 💔

Rob Feb 28, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer in 2020.

We caught my mom's in early 2024 and it was operable and she's good now.

but holy crap this is enormous.

quixote Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Finally got around to reading the article and it's like having the invention of antibiotics suddenly appear.

Utterly amazing!

I started by scanning for sample size. Sixteen. Wait a minute, I said. That's nothing. But then: p=0.007. Double boggle. To reach that much statistical significance with that small a sample size, the treatment needs to be near-perfect!

This is simply brilliant.

Luna Lactea Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I hope someone peer reviews this.

Doc Impossible Mar 1, 2025

@jackemled it's in Nature. It's peer reviewed.

Luna Lactea Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I didn't know that was a requirement for them. Thank you!

martin_fff Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD we all miss those taken too soon, especially if such cures had been just over the horizon

f*cking b*tch club Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD I know someone who’s involved in this clinical trial. She initially had a prognosis of six months to live—that was more than four years ago. I’m crossing my fingers that the trials won’t be DOGE’d.

Jeri Dansky Mar 1, 2025

@Impossible_PhD Thanks for sharing this news. I miss my mom.

May your dad's memory continue to be a blessing.

ruska Mar 2, 2025

@Impossible_PhD @OiskaE This is phenomenal news. Lost my grandfather to it years ago, mom to another cancer later. So happy if less people have to go through that in the future. Much needed good news in these times.