This sounds really promising. Drug delivery seems like the biggest way to improve existing treatment modalities (improve effectiveness, reduce side effects, etc).

I hope that if this works well, then they can use the same carrier molecule to deliver vaccines specific to other tumor antigens than KRAS? Wouldn’t the approach of targeting lymph nodes also improve non-cancer vaccines too, or other immunotherapies such as immunosuppression in transplant patients which would permit a lower dose?

One thing I still don’t understand though is why immune based therapies in cancer patients are given after chemotherapy, which destroys the immune system.

I understand that once tumors get to a certain size it’s dangerous not to throw our most effective option at them, but it seems like earlier screening + earlier immunotherapy would work better for the general population, and chemo could be used as a last resort. After all you typically don’t wait until someone has a disease to give them a vaccine.

Does anyone know the state of using immunotherapies as first line treatment (even in cancers where chemo “works well” in initial treatment?