It is a high quality study that combines all the latest technologies to validate a new concept that can be clinically very relevant. For all these reasons, it has been accepted in a prestigious journal.

Most relevant is the validation that there are areas of the genome of these cancer cells that were thought to be silent but actually code for microproteins, as well as the discovery that these proteins are tumour-specific and can stimulate an immune response. They can therefore be harnessed for the manufacture of generic vaccines on a mass scale, without the need to individualise for each patient, which could be a major breakthrough.

[As for limitations] There is no clinical experience yet. It is a very attractive concept, but one of the problems with hepatocellular carcinoma and other tumours is that they lack the system for presenting proteins to the immune system (the major histocompatibility system), which is necessary for vaccines to be effective.