Orla Dolan

Yeah, I mean, ASCO is this time of year where I think everybody brings their best results out.

What you're hearing is the five year results of a trial in people with stage three melanoma.

And what they really saw was that they were able to, with a new vaccine based on an mRNA vaccine,

And I think the general public in Ireland are probably familiar with mRNA vaccines during COVID.

We were all given them as part of the vaccine strategy for that.

But what is unique about this approach is that it's personalised East patient.

So while in the mRNA vaccine that was given to us during COVID, it was the same antigen or the same target for everybody.

In this, what was unique and makes it really landmark is that they were able to sequence a person's normal DNA and then also their tumor DNA and then using a sophisticated algorithm, identify 34 targets that they would prime the immune system to go after and give our immune system a blueprint to go after that person's individual cancer.

And that's why they saw such amazing results.

It is.

It is.

And I think, you know, now we have the technology to be more sophisticated in designing these things.

And what you really saw was it would be to each individual person.

So to people who get cancer, it's a buildup of mutations over time and each individual is different.

And so what they're doing here is they're using this advanced technology to sequence the difference between the two.

Look for things that are definitely cancer causing targets and then say this is that patient's cancer causing targets.

This is 34 of them.

Look at those and go after those.

And what they do with the vaccine is they also give an immunotherapy at the same time.

So they're boosting the immune system at the same time and then basically giving him a roadmap to say, that's what I want you to go after.