A cancer vaccine built from a patient’s own tumor just passed a Phase 3 trial, the first time that has ever happened. Moderna and Merck’s intismeran autogene (mRNA-4157 / V940) reads the DNA of a patient’s melanoma, picks up to 34 tumor-specific mutations, and writes them into a single strand of mRNA that trains the immune system to hunt the cancer. Combined with Keytruda, it kept melanoma from coming back or spreading in a 1,137 patient trial. Moderna’s stock jumped over 200 percent in a day.

In this episode: what was actually announced (and the numbers that weren’t), how the 130-year-old idea behind it finally worked, why the mRNA backlash aimed at the wrong suspect, a beat-by-beat check on the viral claims (\.