Immunotherapy is not some wonder drugs. It's been around for some time as far as cutting edge is concerned, obviously quite new compared to the 1980s chemo revolution. By "been around by quite some time" I mean there are quite a number of immunotherapy drugs, and follow-on "me-too" competitors, and lots of 2nd and 3rd and 4th generation drugs. THe only reason it may seem brand spanking new to you, is dunning kruger effect.

It's quite expensive and doesn't always work. We have predictors of whether it works well or not, but nothing has stuck. It's very hard because cancer is hard and immune system is hard, and this is both.

THis whole thing about "immunotherapy is new and has bugs to figure out" is half true, but hell, if "bugs" mean that it doesn't work, the whole reason immunotherapy exists is because the things that came before also had these "bugs" ie people dying.

Every cancer is different. Every cancer is different in every different person. THere are common trends, common genes, common themes, absolutely, but every cancer is different just like every person every face is different. At best you can get a common drug targeting common genes and common themes, just like you could target people with brown hair, but if you happened to have blonde hair you're out of luck until they cook up a solution for that. This is the nature of cancer and where there is no universal cure.

also this board is pretty dang comp sci heavy, and comp sci and physics the instinct is 1000% dunning kruger within the realm of biology or other extraneous inferior-appearing fields. BIology is the most rabbit hole ridden field. The rabbit holes have rabbit holes, and they have their own rabbit holes. You're thinking about cancer but maybe it relates to some evolutionary resistance that was necessary 200 million years ago, and that relates to a biochemical pathway protein binding side. It's a polymath's wet dream really. So it's important not to hand wave or give airs of understanding it. I've been specializing in the area for many years and I can say that nobody understands it really, other than that it works sometimes with some various correlates of when it works. Like most parts of bio, people will specialize in one compenent of the system or one pathway, not the system as a whole. People who claim to capture the system as a whole kinda do interesting things but they don't have the detailed big picture, more like various correlates that are frought with confounders