The personalized vaccine that could revolutionize cancer treatment

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

0:24Researchers are cautiously optimistic that this will represent a big breakthrough on how we treat cancers. There's promising news about an mRNA vaccine that could treat melanoma.

0:47It's Wednesday, August 19th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR Boston. I'm Kalyani Saxena. Today on the show, activist David Hogg has been working to get progressives elected. He shares his take on how Democrats are doing ahead of midterms. I want young people to look at our party and see somebody like Mayor Mondani and say, you know what, at least there is somebody there that properly represents me, that has paid rent this century and is not controlled by the special interests that make trillions of dollars off of stopping progress. Also, as wildfires burn around the world this summer, we hear from a survivor of last year's Eaton Fire in California about what life looks like now.

1:30There is just something about a community experiencing a tragedy of this magnitude together that sort of eliminates the differences between you. But first, we've got some exciting news about an mRNA vaccine that could potentially slow the spread of melanoma and prevent recurrence of the cancer. Here's what we know at this point. A trial of more than a thousand people with high-risk melanoma saw dramatic outcomes after they were treated with a personalized mRNA vaccine. That's the same technology that led to the creation of the COVID vaccine. And the findings could have massive implications for the treatment of other cancers.

2:13It's worth noting here that this news comes after the Trump administration has pulled back from scientific research and cast doubt on mRNA vaccines. Indira Lakshmanan spoke with Wall Street Journal reporter Xavier Martinez about the vaccine. So this is a very new therapy. It's a vaccine derived from specific cancer cells in individual patients' bodies. How does it work? Exactly. I think when you hear that cancer vaccine, you think of a flu shot or something like this. But this is kind of different. It's made for a specific cancer patient after they're diagnosed. And so the process works like this.

2:52A patient has surgery to remove their tumor. Doctors biopsy that tumor and sequence its DNA to find the specific mutations that are driving that person's cancer. And then scientists build a vaccine using mRNA that trains the immune system to recognize those exact mutations. It takes about six weeks to manufacture, and it's literally a one-person batch unique to that patient's tumor. Wow. This sounds like exactly the kind of personalized medicine we've been hearing is on the horizon. Is this the first breakthrough in that realm? You know, this is just about as personalized as medicine gets right now.

3:28There are other types of cell therapies that use similar sort of methodologies, but, you know, this is not a drug sitting on a shelf that gets given to everyone in the same way. Every dose is built for one specific patient based on their unique genetic mutations in their own tumor. Wow, that sounds expensive to individually sequence a cancer genome. How much is this going to cost for patients? Absolutely. That's one of the biggest questions on Wall Street's mind right now. We're still waiting to see the exact numerical results of this study. We know that they met their main goals, but we're not sure by how much.

4:03I think people are expecting the price will be relatively high. It is manufactured here in the U.S., in Massachusetts, in Moderna's facility, and so distribution wouldn't be across the world, but it could be quite expensive. Well, Xavier, let me ask you, mRNA vaccines are very controversial with the Make America Healthy Again movement, many of whom make up President Trump's base. Moderna isn't even calling this cancer therapy a vaccine, though it uses the same technology. Why not? Absolutely. I think one key distinction, and I referenced this earlier, is just the fact that it's not given as a preventative measure, like a flu shot or something like that.

4:39I mean, this is used as a quote-unquote therapeutic to address people with cancer. But, you know, in calls with researchers and with clinicians, that topic does come up a lot, right? How do you message this when there is so much skepticism about vaccines and specifically about mRNA. And I think that it's a question on everyone's mind. How do you talk about it? How do you explain it to the public? Because there are some differences, although there are some similarities. All right. You've interviewed cancer researchers. What do they say about how promising this is? Researchers are cautiously optimistic that this will represent a big breakthrough on how we treat cancers.

5:15There's a lot of other studies going on to see how this type of technology might be able to work in different kinds of tumors. The researchers decided to start with melanoma because it does have the most sort of unique mutations. And so moving it into different types of cancers like lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, is really going to determine how widespread it's going to be used. But it really represents, in a lot of people's minds, a great step forward. Well, you report that Moderna and Merck have other trials underway. So it looks like the goal is to individually target all sorts of cancers.

5:52Absolutely. The goal here from Moderna's perspective is definitely to broaden this out to as many different types of cancers as they can. There's three that are further along than the rest, I would say. They're testing it in a bladder cancer, a very common form of lung cancer, and a kidney cancer. And so it's going to be really interesting to see sort of if these results hold up for a long period of time with melanoma, but also whether they're actually applicable to these other types of cancers, because that could make this not just a multi-billion dollar market, but tens and tens of billions of dollars per year for these companies.

6:25Well, Xavier, Moderna became a household name during the pandemic because of their speedy development of a COVID vaccine. How has the company been doing since then? And how does this new trial affect their business? This is enormous for Moderna. Since COVID, their vaccine demand has really fallen off and the company has posted losses for years. This, however, marks their entry into cancer treatments, a market that's worth over$240 billion per year. Moderna's CEO told us last night that Moderna is now an oncology company, which is quite different from the COVID pandemic years. And the CEO is projecting that the company could return to sales growth by the end of this year.

7:09As for the stock market reaction, it's been remarkable today. The company has more than doubled in value during today's session so far. That's Wall Street Journal reporter Xavier Martinez. Thank you so much. Thank you.

7:29After the break, most of us know David Hogg's name from his activism after the 2018 Parkland shooting. Now he's getting a lot of attention as he goes head to head with Democratic Party leaders to support young progressive candidates. In just a moment, Indira sits down with Hogg to get his perspective on Democrats ahead of the midterm election. Stick around.

7:58Election results today are a mixed bag for progressives who've been on a winning streak in many states. In Florida's primary for U.S. Senate, Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon easily defeated the far better-funded establishment Democrat Alex Vindman. But Florida's Congressman Jared Moskowitz, a pro-Israel moderate, beat a Democratic Socialist who had called for ending U.S. aid to Israel. Democratic Party progressive activist David Hogg was watching. As a teenager, Hogg survived the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Now he runs Leaders We Deserve, a group that supports young progressives running for office.

8:35David, welcome to Year In Now. Thank you so much for having me. David, what is your big takeaway from today's results across a handful of states from California to Florida? That the progressive movement is strong. We saw what I would consider the largest upset of the election cycle so far last night in Florida, where State Representative Angie Nixon, despite being outspent 16 to 1, still managed to pull off a huge upset against her opponent in the Democratic primary and win that race. And it's because she showed up for her community. She had worked for years in the state legislature. And people are moving on from just candidates that talk about how they're against Donald Trump.

9:13They're looking for candidates that are talking about what their vision is for a post-Donald Trump America. But as a new member of the DSA, she's going to be asked about some of the most radical parts of their agenda, such as abolishing prisons. Here she is on MS Now this morning. Let's listen. I don't support abolishing prisons. What I do support is abolishing for-profit prisons because they exploit labor and they usher many of our children into the school-to-prison pipeline. All right, David, you're from Florida. It has gone decidedly red in recent years. Do you think that Nixon actually has a snowball's chance in Florida in November?

9:52You know, I'm always cautiously optimistic about my home state. The biggest growing political party in the state of Florida is actually not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It's no party affiliation at all. And it's because voters are really sick and tired of that state. Many of them moved there because of the cost of living crisis in our country, including my own family that moved there back in 2014 because we couldn't afford to live in California anymore. And I think that one of the things that across the board is aligning a lot of these DSA candidates and why they're winning these primaries is because people want something different, even if there are candidates within DSA that disagree with some of the parts of the platform, as Angie Nixon just said.

10:30So, David, it wasn't a clean sweep for DSA or progressive candidates. Congressman Jared Moskowitz, who's a pro-Israel moderate Democrat, was able to fend off a challenge from a progressive primary opponent who was backed by Democratic socialists who had called for cutting off U.S. aid to Israel. Let's listen to Jared Moskowitz on CNN. People want normalcy. They want to stop this, you know, left extreme, right extreme. They want Washington to work for them. All right. So he's referring to a left extreme. Let me ask you, is your organization, which is supporting progressives and young people, going to help Moskowitz, who's a fellow Democrat, win in November?

11:15So across the board, we want Democrats to win, even if there are some Democrats like Moskowitz, who I've known for years. He was actually the state representative when the shooting at my high school happened. And he was instrumental in helping us change gun laws in Florida. And he's been a staunch supporter of stronger gun laws, even in a purple seat ever since. And the bottom line is Jared is in a tough fight now. And I'm fine to have some differences with my fellow Democrats, so long as we are united on the thing that matters most, which is defeating Republicans. So I'm hearing a strong message from you that it's important, regardless of internal differences within the Democratic Party, to come together in November and support whatever Democrat is on the ticket.

11:52But aren't you making it a lot about age? And should the issue be about age or should it be about the topics that are on the table, affordability, health care, gun control, whatever the issues are that matter to the people of that community? So I think the issues are really what matters most. And I think they actually go hand in hand. You know, I don't believe that we can have so many people in Congress that have not paid rent this century understand the real pressures that young people are under right now. And Americans of all ages who pay rents are under right now when many of those members of Congress have owned their homes for years.

12:26You know, I don't think I've ever heard you call him geriatric, but House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is certainly an establishment Democrat. He told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that he does not support the Democratic Socialists agenda, but he's going to work with any of them who were elected. Here's what he said Democrats across the board should be focused on. Let's listen. Lowering the high cost of living in areas like groceries and gas and, of course, housing and fighting to make health care affordable for every single American, while at the same period of time pushing back against the corruption that has been unleashed on the American people and holding the crooks accountable.

13:06That doesn't sound that different from what you're talking about. So are young progressives on message with establishment Democrats and maybe don't even realize it? You know, I think ultimately the establishment is coming to many of the same talking points about affordability and fighting against corruption that progressives have paved the way to talk about. Affordability was not a big part of the conversation until Zoran really championed that and won in a huge upset in the New York City mayor's race. And now that's resonated across the country. And despite the establishments freaking out, Zoran is now one of the most popular elected officials in the country.

13:42All right. But David, I have to say there are a lot of people who may agree with your views, but who frankly don't bother showing up to vote because they believe that the system is too entrenched to change, that there's too much money in politics. For example, all these years for a decade now, you've been working on gun reform. We've seen very little gun reform. And so what do you say to those young people who say, why should I even bother voting and showing up when the system is broken? Here's the deal. I understand what those young people are thinking because I was one of those young people.

14:15I felt like this political system was so corrupt, I didn't want to participate in that. We don't have to mobilize every single young person in the country to actually start to win here. There are so few people, unfortunately, that vote that you only need to mobilize 10, 15, 20 percent of those young people to consistently get them out in voting and get substantial change. David, I have to challenge you on something, though. We are a country that has voted for Donald Trump twice now, that has elected Donald Trump twice. Who ran on an anti-corrupting platform. What was the thing that he said in 2016 that he still said when he was running again in 2024?

14:48Drain the swamp over and over and over again. And I think there is something for Democrats to learn from that. Democrats can be the ones to answer that calls successfully, finally, and actually say, no, we actually are the party that will fight against the corruption. It's hard to say that, though, when we continue to take so much corporate cash. David Hogg is president of the group that supports young progressive candidates for office, leaders we deserve. Thank you so much, David. Thank you.

15:19Up next, Americans are becoming terribly familiar with wildfires choking the skies with smoke and burning down their homes. We saw it this summer in Spokane and last year in California when the Eaton Fire ravaged LA. After the break, Indira speaks with survivor Nikki High, a Pasadena native and bookstore owner, about lessons learned after a devastating wildfire. That's coming up in just a moment.

15:55Wildfires fueled by extreme heat and drought made worse by climate change have burned through millions of acres of land this summer across the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Western Europe. Tens of thousands of people have been affected as homes and businesses have been destroyed. The story is a familiar one to Nikki High, who on the evening of January 7, 2025, had to evacuate her home in Pasadena, California, to escape the deadly Eaton fire. A Pasadena native and owner of a local bookstore called Octavia's Bookshelf, Nikki had no idea if her home or store would survive. Here she is at a U.S.

16:34Senate hearing earlier this month recounting that time. After evacuating on January 7th, my husband and I drove back to our street the next morning to find it actively on fire. I drove the few blocks from my house to my bookshop and was relieved to discover that we were still standing and we had power and Wi-Fi access. Nikki posted on social media two days later, letting customers know they could come to her store to charge their phones and get water and snacks. The response was overwhelming, and for five weeks, Octavia's Bookshelf, named after legendary sci-fi writer and Pasadena native Octavia Butler, served as a mutual aid hub.

17:14The Eaton Fire killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9 ,000 homes and businesses, and more than a year later, residents are still rebuilding. Octavia's Bookshelf is back in business, and it remains a place where Eaton survivors come seeking help. Nikki High joins us now to share lessons of how she and other survivors came together in the aftermath to rebuild their lives. Nikki, welcome to Here and Now. Thank you so much for having me. So this has been yet another devastating summer for communities, this time in Washington State, Oregon, Canada, also around the world as far away as Portugal, France, and Greece.

17:53I imagine that seeing all the images of the destruction may bring back painful memories for you. Oh, absolutely. Even a strong wind sort of brings back that moment, but certainly watching the devastation that's occurring now, it's so devastating. And for people like me, we're just reliving the nightmare we went through in January of 2025 all over again. Our hearts really do go out to those communities. So take us back to what you experienced. Your street was on fire. You were running a small business. What happened on that night? Yeah, so after evacuating, I was actually not able to get back to my house until the following morning.

18:40When I got to my house, actually the end of the block, the street was actively on fire. I mean, there were sounds sort of like a tick, tick, tick. then you'd hear boom. There were embers the size of basketballs. And I sat there in horror with my husband and my other neighbors. There were no fire trucks or first responders. We saw one. He drove by our street and we were waving him down and he shrugged his shoulders sort of like in a I'm sorry, sort of motion. And so I actually did not know if my house survived for several days post-fire because the fire went on for quite some time and then the National Guard was deployed.

19:33So a friend of mine actually told me, she said, I see the front of your house. She was able to use her press pass. She said, your street's entirely gone, but I see the facade of your house. There were approximately nine homes on a street of over 250 houses that are still standing today. My house is one of them, but it looked like a war zone all around me. And it was just one of the most devastating days of my life. So what inspired you to transform your store into a mutual aid center? And did the community response surprise you in that there was so much need, but you also got lots of donations to sustain the hub?

20:21The response was unreal. People just came by sort of in a daze. They weren't sure what they needed or what to do. And I just started to try to assist people as they came in. And I had folks drive up and say, hey, well, do you have enough water for me to take back to my sister's house where we evacuated? And so that was when I posted another post on Instagram. And I said, hey, guys, you know, if anybody has water or masks, we can really use it. I mean, you have to understand at this point, the city of Altadena was actively on fire. The streets were just a haze of gray and smoke. You couldn't even see before you're more than a foot in front of you.

21:10And it was really terrible. And within hours, I had trucks and delivery drivers pulling up with cases and cases of water and masks. And within about two days, I thought, okay, we have an operation on our hands because we had so many people saying, hey, by the way, do you have an air purifier? Or do you have these other items? And so I just thought, well, I'll go back to the same community that helped me two days ago. And I said, hey, guys, we kind of need purifiers and food and diapers. And I did it until the needs were met. As I think back on those moments and just understanding how connected this community is to one another, I think, well, you know, that's just what we do.

22:04Right. Well, in the immediate aftermath, you had an incredible response and you spearheaded this sort of community center. As you say, so many people were willing to pitch in and donate and neighbors helping neighbors. It's now been a year and a half since the Eaton and Palisade fires. Your community is no longer in the headlines, but you have said that the effects on fire survivors last long beyond when the flames are put out. Absolutely. There are still barriers to returning home, whether that's being uninsured, underinsured, the lengthy process of obtaining permits to rebuild, not understanding rebuild options for our community members that were renters.

22:52They are now faced with living outside of the community because rents have doubled, even tripled in some cases. We are still dealing with the impacts of respiratory issues. So there's still so much work to do and it's difficult to keep that message alive. And so we are left in many cases to do what we did 19 months ago and that's to just lean on each other. Well, you've taken leadership in helping people grieve and process their losses from the fire. You led a series of summer workshops. You hosted grief support sessions, a chance for fire survivors to come and share information with each other.

23:39People are still rebuilding and dealing with the effects. What do you want listeners to know about the kind of support that is needed in the immediate aftermath of these wildfires and even one in two years down the road? That's a great question. I think what they need to know immediately is that your neighbors and your community will be your best line of defense in terms of taking care of one another. There is just something about a community experiencing a tragedy of this magnitude together that sort of eliminates the differences between you. And I think that that network of community is super important, not only in the initial stages, but a year, a year and a half later.

24:27In terms of small businesses in this community, I think being able to donate or to support the business every little bit helps. And it keeps us open so that we can continue to provide workshops and community-focused groups that empower our community and help us to heal from this and to get back home. It's a long-term process of paying it forward and helping those people who've been suffering through fires and loss this summer. Nikki High is a survivor of the Eaton Fire and the owner of Octavia's Bookshelf in Pasadena, California. Nikki, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Indira. I really appreciate it.

25:09Here and Now Anytime comes from NPR and WBUR Boston. Today's stories were produced by James Mastromarino, Lynn Menegon, and Jessica Carissa. Today's editors were Todd Munt, Michael Scotto, and Micaela Rodriguez. technical direction from Matt Reed and Nick Dussault Chris Bentley wrote the theme music with Mike Moschetto and Max Liebman our digital producers are Alison Hagen and Grace Griffin and here and now's executive producer is Alan Price thanks for listening see you tomorrow