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Science Quickly

Can Vaccines Help Defeat Cancer?

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Host Kendra Pierre-Louis speaks with reporter Rowan Moore Gerety about how mRNA vaccines, first successfully developed to protect against COVID, are now being tested to treat cancers such as pancreatic cancer. Together, Pierre-Louis and Moore Gerety explore the science behind these therapeutic vaccines and share the story of a survivor whose remission underscores their potential to transform cancer care. Recommended Reading New Cancer Vaccines Could Treat Some Types of Pancreatic, Colorectal and Other Deadly Forms of the Disease Why mRNA Vaccines Are So Revolutionary—And What’s at Stake if We Lose Them E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Kendra Pierre-Louis, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Why are businesses like HelloVet choosing Apple products and services?

0:04.8

So we started the business two years ago.

0:07.2

We had a few people who were used to PCs and this was their first foray into Macs.

0:12.5

But it's been super smooth getting everyone onto those devices and everyone seems really, really happy.

0:18.0

Find out how Mac can help you run and grow your business

0:21.2

at Apple.com forward slash hellovette.

0:36.5

For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Kendra Pier-Lewis in for Rachel Heltman.

0:49.0

Cancer.

0:50.5

It's a diagnosis that most of us have learned to fear.

0:54.0

On the one hand, decades of medical advancements have increased treatment and It's a diagnosis that most of us have learned to fear.

0:59.1

On the one hand, decades of medical advancements have increased treatment and survival rates.

1:04.5

A number of people who in the past might have died from cancer now go on to live long,

1:06.9

full lives without recurrence.

1:09.0

But not everyone is so lucky.

1:15.5

For certain kinds of cancers, including cancer of the pancreas, effective treatments largely remain elusive.

1:17.4

So increasingly, researchers are looking to perhaps an unexpected tool for help.

1:22.8

Vaccines.

1:24.0

It turns out that before mRNA vaccines became a key tool to protect people against COVID-19,

1:30.4

researchers were initially eyeing them as a way to target cancer, and that work continues.

1:36.3

To learn more about how MRNA vaccines can help battle cancer, we're talking to reporter Rowan

1:42.4

Morrady. He covered this topic for the December

1:45.2

edition of Scientific American. What inspired you to write this story? When this first came on my

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