Episode
How to design a cancer vaccine (and vastly improve them): Alex Rubinsteyn & Ben Vincent
- Podcast
- Owl Posting
- Published
- Jul 6, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 10796
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.owlposting.com/p/how-to-design-a-cancer-vaccine-and
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Summary
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5xk4OjH1jVYbDR6xTTvqCY?si=11564348b75a459a Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/owl-posting/id1758545538?i=1000775598448 Youtube: https://youtu.be/EmbciAO9d-M Transcript: https://www.owlposting.com/p/how-to-design-a-cancer-vaccine-and?open=false#%C2%A7transcript Back in early May, I flew to North Carolina to interview Alex Rubinsteyn (left) and Benjamin Vincent (right). Together, they run the Personalized Immunotherapy Research Lab (PIRL) at UNC-Chapel Hill. It would be difficult for me to emphasize the degree to which Alex and Benjamin are in a league of their own amongst almost any other researcher I have ever met, demonstrating a degree of translational ambition, scientific insight, clarity of thought, and just genuine kindness that one rarely sees. And each time I stumble across a person like this, I try my best to get them in front of a camera. This is the first interview I’ve ever done where I traveled specifically for a guest(s), and I’m very, very glad I did it. We’re in an interesting moment with cancer vaccines. Between Sid Sijbrandij’s ‘founder mode’ journey on his cancer (which involved cancer vaccines), and the dog cancer vaccine story , a lot of eyes are being directed here. As luck would have it, Alex and Benjamin have spent a fairly high fraction of their career in this exact field, and have contributed to some of the most foundation work in it: MHCflurry 2.0, OpenVax , LENS , and plenty of other work. In fact, Alex actually helped run a neoantigen cancer vaccine trial a few years back! So obviously, they’d make for great conversation here. We talked for three hours about this area, eventually stretching beyond cancer vaccines and discussing the grander field of personalized immunotherapy. This…