Opinion: Antagonism to mRNA Technology Is Killing Our Best Shot At a Cure For Cancer

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was terminating around $500 million in BARDA contracts associated with mRNA vaccine development. It was far from the first cut to public funding of mRNA research made on unscientific grounds. Despite consensus on mRNA’s merits, non-experts have sown doubts about the technology’s safety, leading to pullbacks in federal funding and even state-level efforts to outlaw it.

Ideological debates about mRNA-based COVID vaccines will continue as America processes the pandemic’s impact, but if we let those fears stifle scientific progress, we will miss our best chance at eradicating cancer.

As an academic whose research focuses on molecular mechanisms of immunity, and as a developer of mRNA-based immunotherapies at Corner Therapeutics, it’s clear to me that the government’s short-sighted moves will not improve public health. Instead, they will derail some of the most promising medical advancements of our time. The irony is that the very mechanism that made COVID-19 vaccines effective—mRNA’s ability to deliver precise molecular instructions to cells—is exactly what we need to crack the code on cancer immunotherapy. We cannot afford to let yesterday’s controversies derail our quest for tomorrow’s cures.

For decades, scientists have known that proteins are the operating agents of our cells, controlling all bodily functions. If you want cells to fight infection, build muscle or prevent cancer, proteins execute the job. We also know that most cellular decisions happen within cells, not outside them. Yet our cells have barriers that prevent protein-based medicines from entering, like houses with locked doors that keep strangers out. This barrier has prevented many technologies from becoming effective medicines.

This major hindrance to medical progress has been solved by mimicking how our bodies naturally use proteins. Rather than forcing medical proteins past the membrane barriers of our cells, we can induce cells to produce therapeutic proteins from within using mRNA, the molecular messenger that allows protein production. This technology isn’t new; it’s been in development since the 1970s. But today, we finally have it right.

When the industry worked on cancer therapies 15-plus years ago, it focused primarily on identifying antigens—molecules unique to cancers. Those efforts fell short because we lacked a crucial second component that tells the immune system the antigen is dangerous. This second component is called an innate immune stimulus. Without both signals, our immune system lacks sufficient information to identify targets and assess their danger.

Research on innate immune stimuli that garnered Nobel Prizes in 2011 and 2023 revealed that our immune system needs both instruction sets to fight infections and cancers. The cells within our bodies that receive these instructions are called dendritic cells (DCs), which control all aspects of immune system function.

As an analogy, think of the immune system as an orchestra, with each disease-fighting cell playing its part in the symphony. DCs serve as conductors, detecting dangerous cells and conveying molecular information to T cells, which become weaponized to attack threats. mRNA technologies are the key to delivering both antigenic and innate immune instructions inside DCs, unlocking durable immunity against cancer and infectious diseases. Just as sheet music instructs orchestra conductors, mRNA can instruct DCs by activating specific genetic pathways that stimulate disease-fighting T cells to protect and keep us healthy.

In 2023, my team at Corner Therapeutics published a new technology that uses mRNA to generate protective T cells within the body. The key to our success in dendritic cell-based T cell engineering was the mRNAs we developed, which stimulate the cGAS-STING innate immune pathway in DCs.

The cGAS-STING pathway is so central to human health that it’s involved in nearly every disease we know of. Scientists have long tried to target this pathway pharmacologically, but traditional approaches failed because they couldn’t reach inside cells where the pathway operates. Our mRNA approach solved this delivery problem by programming cells to activate the pathway from within, creating what we call “inside-out” immunotherapy. When tested on resected human tumor samples and in rigorous preclinical models, this new mRNA-based technology generated robust, durable immune responses that significantly outperformed other clinical-grade comparators.

We’re not alone in exploring this new approach to cancer therapy. Small clinical trials led by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Merck and Moderna have paired mRNA technologies with checkpoint inhibitors, achieving remarkable success in kidney cancer—none of the nine patients who received treatment have reported cancer recurrence. Similarly, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Genentech and BioNTech have leaned into mRNA with a focus on pancreatic cancer, with larger trials planned after 50% of patients demonstrated strong immune responses.

With mRNA at the center of every successful approach, we are on the cusp of a new era in cancer immunotherapy, with millions of lives hanging in the balance.

Think of mRNA like computer science in education. Thirty years ago, few colleges offered computer science classes. Today it’s hard to find any that don’t, and most high schools teach advanced courses. The reason? Computer science revealed itself as valuable for the workforce, giving students with these skills professional advantages. The same logic applies to mRNA technologies in medicine.

Those who embrace rather than undermine mRNA-based technologies will emerge as tomorrow’s leaders, and just as America became dominant in computer science and artificial intelligence, we could also lead the world in mRNA-based progress against cancer. However, these groundbreaking discoveries will never reach their clinical potential if we allow fearmongering to stop progress.

While federal funding may be limited in the near term, pharmaceutical companies and private investors must fill the gap. This isn’t just altruistic—these approaches address common diseases, presenting massive market opportunities.

By embracing mRNA as a means to using DCs to weaponize disease protective T cells, we can create flexible strategies capable of adapting to wide-ranging threats, from rapidly mutating viruses to complex cancers, ultimately maximizing both human health and investor returns.

We have the tools to program our cells with instructions to fight cancer and infectious diseases. This technology allows us to provide the two crucial signals our immune system needs: identification of threats and confirmation of their danger. Armed with these capabilities, the pharmaceutical industry has an opportunity to translate basic research into life-saving immunotherapies.

This vision is within our grasp, but only if we act decisively without letting misplaced skepticism hinder one of medicine’s most promising frontiers. Researchers outside the U.S. will continue developing these technologies, potentially leaving American pharmaceutical companies—and the American public—at a disadvantage.

The choice is clear: embrace the future of medicine or watch others lead the charge against humanity’s greatest health challenges. There is no time to waste.