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It is a treatment for people with cancer.

The mRNA cancer vaccine they're developing is for people who already have cancer. It's targeted based on the specific tumour the patient has, and basically primes the immune system to attack the cancer cells. They can't even develop the vaccine until the patient has the cancer it's fighting against.

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How does this work? In the case of Covid, I understand (for some value of "understand") how they can make the cells create virus proteins, which then train the immune system without an actual infection to be ready for when the real virus strikes. But if someone already has cancer cells, wouldn't all the proteins to train against already be in the body in the first place?

The proteins are present but the immune system does not see them as “foreign”. The vaccine primes the immune system to see them as a foreign attacker.

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