Excellent oncology care at your cancer center does not mean you have access to all the options.
Our focus is to identify innovative therapies that are specific to your cancer.
Immunotherapy can Be very effective and Can have a major advantage over chemotherapy due to a much lower side effect profile.
T-CELL BASED THERAPIES
T-cells are the actual soldier cells within the immune system. We can isolate these T-cells from individual patients and genetically modify them in the laboratory to better direct their strong cell-destroying effects towards cancer cells.
CYTOKINE THERAPIES
Cytokines are specific signaling proteins whose job is to effect the function of many cells. Their actions control immune responses, inflammation and the development of new blood cells. Enhancing the function of certain white blood cells, cytokines can be used to inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
RECOMBINANT ANTIBODY THERAPIES
Recombinant antibody therapies involve naturally occurring proteins that deliver strong toxins specifically into cancer cells, or interfere with so-called immune checkpoints to increase the immune response against cancer cells.
CANCER VACCINE STRATEGIES
Cancer vaccines are created with certain molecules that are structurally similar to those found on the surface of the specific tumor. This allows for better recognition among immune cells to facilitate a response. These vaccines can be made using other immune cells (i.e. dendritic cells).
Precision medicine involves powerful therapies that target specific molecules on cancer cells, while leaving healthy body cells untouched.
"Many of the remarkable successes of cancer treatments of the last decades are instances of drugs that were matched to the singular vulnerabilities of individual cancers.
The drug Gleevec, for instance, can kill leukemia cells — but only if the patient’s cancer cells happen to carry a gene mutation called BCRABL.
Tarceva, a targeted therapy for lung cancer, works powerfully if the patient’s cancer cells happen to possess a particular mutant form of a gene; for lung cancer patients lacking that mutation, it may be no different from taking a placebo.
Because the medicines target mutations or behaviors that are specific to cancer cells (but not normal cells), many of these drugs have surprisingly minimal toxicities — a far cry from combination chemotherapies of the past."