Episode description

Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat, and about 90% of diagnosed patients die from the disease. A team at Memorial Sloan Kettering has been working to improve those outcomes by developing a new mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer.

A few years ago, the team embarked on a small trial to test the vaccine’s safety. Sixteen patients with pancreatic cancer received it, and even though it was a small study, the results were promising: Half the participants had an immune response, and in those patients the cancer hadn’t relapsed after 18 months.

This week, the team released a new study in Nature following those same patients, and found six out of eight who responded to the vaccine in the first study did not have their cancer return more than three years later.

Joining host Flora Lichtman to talk about these results, and what they could mean for the future of cancer treatment, is study author and surgeon Dr. Vinod Balachandran, director of The Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering, based in New York City.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.