How the Immune System Could "Cure" Cancer

Podcast: Top Researcher Says Antibodies Key to Unleashing Cancer-Killing T-Cells

By Marc Dresner, IBC Life Sciences

The “cure” for cancer may already reside in the human body. It just needs to be activated.

Dr. Louis M. Weiner

Indeed, Dr. Louis Weiner, Director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgetown University Medical Center’s Department of Oncology Chair, says the immune system could potentially dispense with cancer much in the way it fights an infectious disease.

Sound a little crazy? That’s fine by Weiner.

Thirty years ago, his colleagues said he was nuts to dedicate himself to anything as “radical and unpromising” as using antibodies to treat cancer; today they constitute the backbone therapies for many cancers.

Dr. Weiner and other, likeminded pioneers are now taking the field in an extraordinary new direction in pursuit of a stunningly elegant solution: using antibodies to neutralize cancer’s ability to protect itself from being destroyed by T-cells.

“We are really on the verge of breaking down the defenses of cancer that have been erected to avoid immune destruction.”

“We are really on the verge of breaking down the defenses of cancer that have been erected to avoid immune destruction,” said Dr. Weiner.

In this podcast interview for Inside Antibody Engineering, Dr. Louis Weiner shares his thoughts on the state of unconjugated antibodies in cancer treatment, what the future holds for antibody drug conjugates for cancer treatment and how the immune system may be deployed to fight cancer.

Listen to the podcast or download a transcript here!

Editor’s note: Dr. Louis Weiner will speak on “Targeting Cancer’s Fragile Strength with Immunotherapy” at the Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics Conference taking place December 7-10 in San Diego.

Click here for an agenda. 

Or for more information visit: www.ibclifesciences.com/antibodyeng

(Ps. SAVE $100 when you register with code D15172BLOG!)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / INTERVIEWER
Marc Dresner is sr. editor and special communication project lead with IBC Life Sciences. He is the former executive editor of Pharma Market Research Report, a publication for market research professionals specializing in pharmaceuticals and life sciences. He may be reached at mdresner@iirusa.com. Follow him @mdrezz.

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How Rutgers is using big data to fight fast moving cancers

Cancer is a disease that attacks the body from the inside.  Science is advancing daily to help doctors and researcher pinpoint and target the specific types of cancers, but how can this be done in a timely manner to help the patients get proper treatment in the right amount of time?  At Rutgers Today, Michele Fisher and Carl Blesch look at how The Rutgers Cancer Institute and Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI2) are teaming up to analyze genomes and human tissues to detect where the cancer will go before it's too late for the patient.

According to the article:
Data crunching and analytics expertise provided by RDI2, and biomaterials and technical support from RUCDR Infinite Biologics – coupled with evaluation by a team of scientific, clinical and bioinformatics experts at the Cancer Institute – are shaping a revolution in how best to determine therapy – a vast improvement over the time-intensive, trial-and-error approach that clinicians have faced for years.

Rutgers is also taking on the cancers many others are hesitant to touch - from ovarian cancers to pancreatic cancers to certain pediatric cancers.

This fall at the BioProcess International Event, Ganesh V. Kaundinya, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Momenta Pharmaceuticals will be on hand to examine this topic further in the presentation Understanding Complexity in Biological Systems through Big Data Analytics- Applications to Biosimilars and Novel Biologics.  For more information on this session and the rest of the program, download the brochure. If you'd like to join us October 20-23 in Boston, as a reader of this blog, you can register to join us with priority code BPI14BLOG and you can save 20% off the standard rate!

Are there any other partnerships standing out to you where big data and scientists are joining forces to treat fast moving cancers or other illnesses?

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