How to build a cancer vaccine, and whether they will work this time

Grateful to Benjamin Vincent and Alex Rubinsteyn for our many conversations on this topic, and comments on drafts of this essay!IntroductionWhen most people hear of “cancer vaccine,” they’ll think of normal vaccines. Perhaps they’ll even think of what ostensibly is a cancer vaccine: the HPV vaccine. These vaccines—and those akin to them—are not the subject of this essay, as those are preventive vaccines against an infectious cause of cancer. When you inject one of those, you are vaccinating agai...