Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-25-1456
Seong Dong Jeong, Benjamin R. Schrank, James J. Mancuso, Betty Y.S. Kim, Wen Jiang, Padmanee Sharma
{"title":"Translational Challenges and Opportunities in mRNA Cancer Vaccines","authors":"Seong Dong Jeong, Benjamin R. Schrank, James J. Mancuso, Betty Y.S. Kim, Wen Jiang, Padmanee Sharma","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.cd-25-1456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.cd-25-1456","url":null,"abstract":"Messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccines have progressed rapidly, with personalized platforms such as mRNA-4157 and BNT122 demonstrating feasibility, safety, and durable immune activity but limited scalability. Off-the-shelf constructs, including BNT111 and BNT113, enable faster, broader deployment, yet they risk reduced precision or immune tolerance. These complementary approaches reveal key translational dualities: personalization versus shared antigen (off-the-shelf), potency versus safety, and speed versus durability. This mini-review synthesizes emerging clinical evidence and outlines strategies such as modular vaccine design, prime–boost vaccination regimens, and adaptive trial frameworks to reconcile these trade-offs and advance scalable, durable mRNA vaccines for broad oncologic impact. Significance: By dissecting the competing design pressures that shape mRNA vaccine performance, this mini-review proposes integrative strategies, spanning modular architectures, prime–boost regimens, and adaptive trials, to reconcile immunologic potency with manufacturability and safety, charting a roadmap toward next-generation cancer vaccines.","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":"271 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":28.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148860830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-0839
Josh N Vo, Yi-Mi Wu, Rui Wang, Tiffany Pham, Xuhong Cao, Sophie Yeung, Mingyu Park, Yelena Kleyman-Smith, Guo Ci Teo, Alyssa J Wu, Anne Li, James C Estill, Lakshmi P Kunju, Chen Yang, Dan R Robinson, Arul M Chinnaiyan
{"title":"Long-Read Haplotype Phasing Resolves Allelic Configuration as a Missing Layer of Precision Oncology.","authors":"Josh N Vo, Yi-Mi Wu, Rui Wang, Tiffany Pham, Xuhong Cao, Sophie Yeung, Mingyu Park, Yelena Kleyman-Smith, Guo Ci Teo, Alyssa J Wu, Anne Li, James C Estill, Lakshmi P Kunju, Chen Yang, Dan R Robinson, Arul M Chinnaiyan","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-0839","DOIUrl":"10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-0839","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Short-read sequencing cannot determine whether co-occurring variants within a cancer gene lie on the same allele (cis) or opposing alleles (trans), a distinction with direct therapeutic consequences: trans configurations confirm biallelic tumor suppressor inactivation, whereas cis configurations generate compound oncogenic alleles with enhanced activity. Among 768 patients with prostate, breast, or ovarian cancers, we used mutational signatures to nominate cryptic genomic instability cases lacking a causative biallelic event on short-read sequencing. Long-read nanopore sequencing resolved 32 of 46 cryptic cases (69.6%) through methylation detection, long insertion resolution, and structural variant characterization, confirming trans inactivation in every resolved tumor suppressor case. Analysis of 4,496 MiOncoSeq samples identified 17,519 multi-hit gene pairs, 78.7% of which exceeded the 500 bp short-read phasing limit, and long-read phasing revealed recurrent compound cis alleles in NOTCH1, PIK3CA, PDGFRB, and KIT. Haplotype phasing addresses an overlooked gap in cancer variant interpretation and warrants integration into precision oncology.</p>","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148872816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1265
Gaurav Agarwal, Vijay G. Sankaran
{"title":"Following the Genetic Breadcrumbs of MPNs","authors":"Gaurav Agarwal, Vijay G. Sankaran","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1265","url":null,"abstract":"Summary: We provide an overview of a recent study in Cancer Discovery by Leongamornlert and colleagues involving genomic profiling of 30 patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms using available blood or bone marrow samples to assess what factors underlie disease evolution or predict stability. See related article by Leongamornlert et al., p. 1843","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":28.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148860839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-RW2026-069
{"title":"Multiplexed In Vivo Screen Pinpoints Drivers of Breast Cancer Aneuploidies.","authors":"","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.CD-RW2026-069","DOIUrl":"10.1158/2159-8290.CD-RW2026-069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":" ","pages":"OF1"},"PeriodicalIF":29.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148711184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-1356
Ana Luísa Correia, Karen O Dixon, J Justin Milner, Nathan H Parker, Theodore L Roth, Jonathan M Tsai, Jessalyn M Ubellacker, Natalie I Vokes, Samir Zaidi, Effie Apostolou, Adrienne Boire, Carla J Chibwesha, Yifat Merbl, Aaron M Newman, Tuomas Tammela
{"title":"Insights on Future Directions in Cancer Research from the AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grant Awardees.","authors":"Ana Luísa Correia, Karen O Dixon, J Justin Milner, Nathan H Parker, Theodore L Roth, Jonathan M Tsai, Jessalyn M Ubellacker, Natalie I Vokes, Samir Zaidi, Effie Apostolou, Adrienne Boire, Carla J Chibwesha, Yifat Merbl, Aaron M Newman, Tuomas Tammela","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-1356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.CD-26-1356","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":"16 9","pages":"1730-1738"},"PeriodicalIF":29.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148863758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cancer discoveryPub Date : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1267
Silvia Tiberti, Katayoun Rezvani, May Daher
{"title":"Mitochondrial Complex I at the Crossroads of NK cell Dysfunction in Glioblastoma","authors":"Silvia Tiberti, Katayoun Rezvani, May Daher","doi":"10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1158/2159-8290.cd-26-1267","url":null,"abstract":"Summary: Zhou and colleagues identify mitochondrial complex I activity, mediated through NDUFA9, as a critical determinant of natural killer (NK) cell metabolic fitness and antitumor function in glioblastoma. Their study links impaired oxidative phosphorylation to glutamine dependence, epigenetic repression of effector programs, and loss of NK cell activity, highlighting mitochondrial fitness as an actionable axis for improving cellular immunotherapy in solid tumors. See related article by Zhou et al., p. 1924","PeriodicalId":9430,"journal":{"name":"Cancer discovery","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":28.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148860836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}