Immunotherapies Podcast

I'm having some issues with pain in my hand and wrist lately, so I'm not going to write much today. (At least I'll try not to. I usually tell myself that, and then get carried away. Haters gonna hate, and writers gonna write, as the kids say.)

So I'm going to share a link to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's podcast, called The Bloodline with LLS. Their most recent episode is called "Immune System To The Rescue: Immunotherapies In Blood Cancer." It features an interview with Dr. John Leonard of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

 I've written about and linked to Dr. Leonard a bunch of times in the past, especially just before the ASH conference every December, when he publishes the Leonard List -- his top 10 most exciting presentations at ASH. I like him a lot -- a great researcher, and someone who knows how to explain complex subjects to non-experts.

Dr. Leonard's topic is Immunotherapy for blood cancers (not just for Follicular Lymphoma). Immunotherapy is a large group of treatments, not one single treatment. I see it discussed a lot as a fourth approach to cancer treatment -- we've had chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery for a long time, and now we have Immunotherapy.

What makes Immunotherapy different from other cancer treatments is that it involves the patient's immune system in some way. As you probably know, our immune systems fight off outside invaders that might do harm to our bodies -- things like viruses and bacteria. One of the reasons our immune systems can't fight off cancer cells is that they don't come from the outside, like a virus. Cancer cells are our own cells. Our immune systems don't usually attack our own bodies (and when they do, you have an autoimmune disease, which causes its on set of problems). 

So Immunotherapies usually take one of two approaches, which allow the immune system to go after cancer cells. First, the treatment can change the immune system so it treats cancer cells as something bad. This is how CAR-T works -- T cells are removed from the body, changed in a lab, and then put back into the body. The second approach is to change the cancer cell, so the immune system can take care of it. This is how checkpoint inhibitors work -- they change the cancer cell so the immune system can recognize it as a problem.

Dr. Leonard goes into more detail about all of this, discusses some of the more common immunotherapies (like Rituxan, which has been around for 25 years now), and some of the newer and more exciting ones (like CAR-T and bi-specifics). 

It's a really interesting discussion, and a nice introduction to Immunotherapy. As I said, Dr. Leonard is very good at explaining difficult concepts in fairly easy language. You can listen to the podcast here (it's about 45 minutes long). If you'd rather read the transcript, or you need it for translation, you can find a pdf of it here.

And now, I'm off the rest my hand. 

More to come soon.