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Immunotherapy: The Battle Within | Documentary

(Loose transcripts)


German refugee Fred Stein

Infection --> remission


Dr. Kiran Lentz, MD - International Immunology Foundation, Prien, Germany

Ralf Keleef, MD

Int Immune Oncology

Ferre Akbarpour, MD

Chief Medical Director, Orange County Immune Institute

From the Blacklist to the Nobel Prize

By Ralph Moss and the Center for Integrative Oncology present:

Science Writer since 1974

MSKCC lied about it

Fired the next day after holding a press conference about it

Also very interested in the conventional

There are only effective and ineffective treatments

The great untold story is William B. Coley

Biggest cover up is the effectiveness of Coley's toxins. The closest we've ever gotten to curing cancer

Hundreds were cured in the early 1900s.

Rise of radiation and then chemo;

CT incredibly inexpensive

In 1963 against vehement

FDA refused to grandfather in CT

Went against their own rules and didn't allow it

THE ACS put it on its list of unproven

The most damning thing that could happen

Eveything conspired against it

Working actively behind the scenes to prevent any further research

Helen and Lloyd J Old - joined at the hip

Helen had no formal training but Lloyd Old was one of the most eminent immunologists of his day

He was the Senior VP at MSKCC 1973-1986

Dr. Lentz

Detected TNC-alpha - uses every day

Successor of Dr. Old is James P. Allison, PhD, 2018 Nobel Prize winner

In 1960s became aware of Lloyd's work and T cells and the T cell receptor. Decided he wanted to unravel T cells.

Do you want to know where we get all our new ideas from? ACS book Unproven Methods of Cancer Management - this is the "Bible"

Helen had no official position but founded the Cancer Research Institute

Fund 150 post doc trainings yearly - Kleef was one of them

Scientifically

Honorary doctorate from Rockefeller University - mostly helens' effort - 20 monographs on her dad's work

Successes were extraordinary

Case after case with ppl of dire disease who survived 30, 40, 50 years

Lloyd despaired of opposing the establishment

Let's go to the root

Can't prove in RCTs

Coley died the year before the RCT was invented

Lloyd directed 200mill toward research cancer immunotherapy and recruited 1000 researchers into the field

Ralf Kleef = Certificate from MSKCC for Resarch fellow in the lab of Dr. Dana Bovberg - 9/12/94

Felt he was back to his roots

James Allison - immune surveillance

The IS has antitumor effects

One of the greatest immunologists in the world

How the IS relates to the IS

Immune checkpoint inhibitors - Yervoy (ipi), Opdivo (nivolumab), Keytruda (pembrolizumab) have revolutionized the way cancer is treated today

T cells are being controlled by checkpoint inhibitors

Blocking the blocking

22 yo woman - brain, liver lung mets. Hospice when she got ipi - tumors went away (14 y ago)

Dr. Said she should think about not having babies

Had melanoma - had her life. Had 2 kids

10 and 7 y.o.

Phase 1 trial from 2001 woman - single dose and is still alive

19 years out no more treatments

Biopsy - never shows cancer - scar tissue where the fight was going on

High dose xrt and chemo suppress IS but studies show that chemo doesn't work all that well in animals that don't have immune systems

There is an immune component to chemo

Ferre Akbarpour, MD

Mark Rosenberg, MD Medical Director, Advanced Medical Therapeutics

Awakened the health care industry to immunotherapy for cancer

Keytruda - Carter's melanoma

Rosen - uses CPI in low doses in combo with other techniques - complete remission

Sometimes no effect, the right, or overwhelming - hard to predict

Some died in early trials - no adverse effects in mice except vitiligo - no wt loss

Then gave 10, 100x as high. No adverse events whatsoever then bam in humans

Kept mice as clean as they can keep them

Humans - lots of infections

Developed algorithms

Almost no colitis now - that was what killed people early on.

Correlation now between AE and response - more likely to have good outcome when you have adverse events