Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you are conflating the antiviral implementation with what the mRNA technology itself is doing. mRNA acts as a blueprint for proteins. Your body has tRNA translation complexes that "read" the mRNA and appropriate the correct amino acid to add to the protein chain. Here is a more detailed description - translation begins about halfway down with the UGCAs: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/transla…
> I could imagine a number of different approaches - targeted inducing of cell death, "painting the target" for chemo drugs, making things like monoclonal (designer) antibodies in-vivo, etc. The article does explicitly call it a "cancer vaccine" (direct quote from the researcher) and says "the same principle [as the COVID-19 vaccine] can be applied to get the immune system to take on tumours". That's more specific th…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembrolizumab
The promise of mRNA is the potential to prompt the body to produce the therapeutic antibodies itself, rather than produce them externally and injecting regularly.