SUMMARY: Cancer treatment was for years dominated by just four techniques. But there is now a fifth category -- immunotherapy -- thanks to the revolutionary research of Jim Allison and Tasuku Honjo, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday. Allison joins Nick Schifrin to discuss his research and his personal connection to fighting the disease.
SUMMARY: For some patients, the body's own natural immune system is being used to fight their cancer. Meet a woman who has lived years past her doctors' prognosis, thanks to the emerging field of immunotherapy. Then Hari Sreenivasan discusses the promise and limits of the treatment with Matt Richtel of The New York Times and Jeff Bluestone, director of the UCSF Hormone Research Institute.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The emerging field of immunotherapy, and its potential to help fight cancer in some patients.
Hari Sreenivasan has a conversation about its promise and limits in a minute.
We begin with the story of a cancer patient who was told at one point that she only had six months to live. She has now lived several years beyond that, thanks to her novel treatment. Those kind of treatments are the focus of our weekly segment, the Leading Edge.
MELINDA WELSH, Cancer Sufferer: My name is Melinda Welsh. I'm a writer, and was editor of The Sacramento News and Review for around 25 years.
And when I was diagnosed with cancer, it just came naturally, I guess, to write about it. It was shocking to hear. I felt stunned.
It is squamous cell carcinoma. And after we learned that the cancer had metastasized, we went to see some specialists. I asked each of them how much time I had left, and that's when they told me, you know, six to nine months, months to a year, a year-ish.
You know, I started writing again, and I felt I had something to say that might mean something to other people because of the lessons I was learning facing death.
“The enormity of the news didn't sink in fully, not at first, even after my doctor uttered the words, ‘I'm sorry, we did find cancer.' I have turned my attention to the question, how do I best spend the time that I have left? My answer is writing, family and friends, the pleasures of small things. I was told, don't skip dessert, so we don't. We have taken to getting up a few early mornings a week and driving out to see the sunrise over the flatlands of our mostly rural county.”
I can't believe this. It is going to be a great day.
“I will take solace in the idea that, once gone, I may come to occupy a small space in the hearts of the people who loved me most, and perhaps from there, I will be the source of a few simple reminders: Time is limited, life is miraculous, and we are beautiful.”
I always loved my life. I felt very lucky, my meeting up with Dave, my love of my life, best friend. So, having cancer, it just made me want my life, but more so.
After that first piece was published, we had a breakthrough. I started immunotherapy. And Dr. Algazi, who is our — my oncologist, surprises us by showing up in the infusion room. And he says, “I just talked to the radiologist. The neck tumor has vanished. And so have the other tumors.”
DR. ALAIN ALGAZI, Skin Cancer Specialist: My name is Alain Algazi. I'm an oncologist.
I specialize in head, neck cancer, and melanoma. I work at the University of California, San Francisco. Melinda presented with squamous cell cancer in a lymph node. It was metastatic, but she was diagnosed at a time when we had access to several new drugs. And those drugs turn the immune cells back on that are in the tumor, and allow them to fight more effectively against the cancer.
So, basically, they're taking your native immune response and enhancing it. So, we caused the tumors to regress and go away.
SUMMARY: Sean Parker made his fortune as the co-founder of Napster and first president of Facebook. Now, the tech entrepreneur and billionaire hopes to change medicine by creating a new kind of research network. Parker gave out a $250 million grant Wednesday to six of the nation’s leading medical schools and cancer centers to fund collaborative immunotherapy research. Parker joins Judy Woodruff for more.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A young tech magnate places a big bet on a different approach to fighting cancer.
Sean Parker made a name for himself as the co-founder of Napster and the first president of Facebook. The billionaire is still actively involved in the start-up world, but he’s now dedicated a significant part of his fortune to medicine and fighting disease.
Today, he announced a major initiative, a $250 million grant to help fund research and collaboration in immunotherapy among six of the country’s leading medical schools and cancer centers. It’s the largest gift ever of its kind.
And he joins me now from Los Angeles.
Sean Parker, welcome.
So where does this passion, the drive to do something about cancer come from?
SEAN PARKER, Founder, Parker Inst. for Cancer Immunotherapy:Well, we have all had our own personal experience with cancer.
Virtually no one is untouched by cancer, whether they have had the disease themselves, one of their loved ones has had it, one of their friends. You know, half of all men and a third of all women will have cancer in their lifetime.
And what’s — what is especially frustrating is, despite all of these advances in genomics and understanding of the drivers behind cancer, progress over the last 20 years just hasn’t been fast enough. And, as somebody who has spent his life as an entrepreneur trying to pursue kind of rapid, disruptive changes, I’m impatient.
And I think — I think that patients and their families and doctors are impatient as well. And as I began to look at this problem more closely, it was clear that we needed both new technology platforms, like immunotherapy, but we also need to figure out how to collaborate and cooperate better within the world of academic science in order to really solve the problem.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You’re zeroing this money in on immunotherapy. Why?
SEAN PARKER: So, immunotherapy is an incredibly promising technology.
It has a very long history going back 100 years. In fact, it was believed at one point that cancer was caused by an insufficiency of the immune system. Turned out that wasn’t entirely false. Cancer is kept in check in the early stages by the immune system. The immune system is also an incredibly powerful weapon. It’s really good at recognizing cells that have mutations, our cells that are different, look different.
And so it makes perfect sense that we should be able to harness the power of the immune system, which works with your own body, in order to target cancer and destroy it.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
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