But my understanding is that some of them target common cancer antigens, so in-principle they could be used preventatively. (Seems like the magic word to search for here is “neoantigens”.)
Common cancer antigens aren’t neoantigens. The common cancer antigens are proteins that normally only get produced in fetal development or in other specific circumstances. As far as I understand the vaccines based on them also didn’t produce good results.
Neoantigens is when you use the feature of the tumor to produce a lot of random mutations.
For instance, this page mentions a current project to develop “transposon-derived neoantigens” for cancer vaccines, and that’s exactly the sort of thing which would potentially be effective against other diseases of aging as well.
It’s basically a tool to get the immune system to fight any cell that has a specific mutation provided you can create a peptide with the mutation that does bind to an MHC molecule.
Common cancer antigens aren’t neoantigens. The common cancer antigens are proteins that normally only get produced in fetal development or in other specific circumstances. As far as I understand the vaccines based on them also didn’t produce good results.
Neoantigens is when you use the feature of the tumor to produce a lot of random mutations.
It’s basically a tool to get the immune system to fight any cell that has a specific mutation provided you can create a peptide with the mutation that does bind to an MHC molecule.