I am sure that by 2025, oncologists will develop therapeutic therapies for most, if not all types of cancer.
Of course, I take a few risks, making such statements. But in the field of cancer research, we are moving to better, safer therapies incredibly quickly, and I excitedly anticipate future results. I am convinced that you need to set the bar high, execute and implement, and there should be no excuse if we do not stand the pace of progress.
2017 has become a landmark in accelerating cancer treatment, new drugs
have received FDA approval . This included two types of CAR T cell therapies, a type of cancer immunotherapy that uses the patient’s own immune cells programmed to attack and kill cancer cells. We all at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are inspired by this news. This is a successful test of what we and our colleagues around the world have been working on for decades. More importantly, it means therapy that has the potential to save the lives of some cancer patients with historically limited treatment options.
By the way, the key phrase in this sentence is
some patients . Kymriah and Yescarta cell immunotherapies have been approved for the treatment of progressive pediatric leukemia and aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, respectively. And we know that, although these two therapies are a big step forward compared to previously available treatments, not all patients respond to them. And of those who react, some have serious side effects.
But there are still a lot more patients and types of cancer that need to be treated and safely treated. Immunotherapy promises to do these other types of cancer, but this approach alone is not enough for complete success. We need to combine a lot of knowledge from different areas, new methods of research, technologies for collecting and analyzing big data to be able to cure more patients.
Researchers at our center are testing tomorrow's cancer therapies in the laboratory and in clinical trials. Last year we saw the remarkable scientific achievements of our laboratories, which hint at what awaits us in the future. Since 2018, my colleagues and I have been closely following several promising areas of cancer research and treatment - and, of course, we are doing everything possible to contribute to their early development.
I have been researching cancer all my career and I see more progress in this area in the past few years than in the previous fifty. And I look forward to what 2018 will bring us.
Immunotherapy new generation
The recent news of
Juno Therapeutics 's
acquisition by Celgene is a good example of how the immunotherapy industry is developing. The science behind Juno immunotherapy goes back to decades of preclinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Center, where our scientists found that certain types of immune cells have potent and sustained antitumor activity.
In order to make cancer immunotherapy safer, we very carefully study some serious
side effects and
infections that are possible after CAR treatment with T cells. Understanding and combating the specific toxicity associated with CAR T therapy will be the key to successfully implementing this method for a larger number of patients.
As we continue to improve our current approaches to immunotherapy, we also test our cellular immunotherapy in new clinical trials and on other types of cancer in order to apply this powerful technology to more patients in need. Our focus was on various forms of blood cancer, although we recently launched a study that includes patients with lung cancer and triple negative breast cancer, as well as another study for patients with melanoma. In 2018, we will expand our field of attention by including many other types of tumors, including ovaries, lungs, head and neck, stomach cancer, multiple myeloma, and many other types of blood cancer.
At the moment we have 12 clinical trials of cellular immunotherapy, and another 21 trials should begin soon. We work with 11 industrial partners in the field of immunotherapy, from global manufacturers such as Eli Lilly and Company, to biotechnology companies such as Minerva Biotechnologies, and, of course, our partners, immunotherapy startups, Juno Therapeutics and Adaptive Biotechnologies. As our tests expand and meet the needs of patients, our specialized cell-growing center produces an average of 200 to 600 million cells per day.
As immunotherapy develops, expanding her early successes from leukemias to tumors will be the most difficult, and most important, case. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Center are moving forward by applying immunotherapy to tumors, such as breast and lung cancer. Some of the most exciting events are a few recent advances regarding a rare tumor known as Merkel cell carcinoma, studies that led to FDA's first
immunotherapy approval
for this cancer , and also showed promising
hints of the power of combination immunotherapy. Research on this rare tumor lays the foundation for future advances in treating other, more common cancers, which we will also deal with in new clinical trials.
We need to combine a lot of knowledge from different areas, new methods of research, technologies for collecting and analyzing big data to be able to cure more patients.
Can cloud computing cure cancer?
Cloud computing has greatly expanded the ways and means of studying cancer. From scientific collaboration in real time between countries and continents to managing data of any scale, cloud technologies will support key efforts such as accurate oncology, enhanced data visualization, and other cutting-edge research that will bring us closer to a cure for cancer.
As we continue to find new connections between genes and tumor types, accurate oncological approaches to cancer treatment will become more important and require at least a terabyte or more data per patient — enough to fill the memory of the eight latest smartphones. Last year, a study in the Fred Hutchinson Center led to the launch of a
new clinical trial of a high-precision drug approach against prostate cancer and revealed certain genetic changes that could
breathe new life into an old leukemic drug.
In December, together with our partners from UW Medicine, we founded the
Institute for Exact Medicine Brotman Baty , and we are very glad that we took part in it. As I noted during the discovery, this institute is another example of a new role for Seattle as a cancer treatment center.
Both the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health recently launched data collection projects that bring together data experts, cloud technologists and bioinformatics experts to stimulate collaborative efforts to use cloud and information tools in large-scale projects. We expect these efforts to continue to gain momentum in 2018, and we at the Fred Hutchinson Center are working with the best cloud providers in several data-intensive projects that use machine learning and cloud computing to speed research and improve patient outcomes.
For example, we use deep learning methods to analyze magnetic resonance images that identify breast cancer markers. We also use artificial intelligence to improve results in patients who receive chemotherapy, and create the next generation platform for the participation of patients who have undergone stem cell transplantation. Follow the progress in these and other areas, as we use cloud technologies in the treatment of cancer.
A recent exciting development was the announcement of a partnership between Adaptive Biotechnologies and Microsoft, which will focus on using artificial intelligence to analyze T-cell receptor sequences in patients with a spectrum of diseases, including cancer, that use the immune system. T cells are the eyes of our immune system. But we need artificial intelligence to provide virtual reality, which allows us to see what they see through T-cell receptor sequencing and develop diagnostics and personalized therapy based on this vision.
So the answer to the question “can the cloud help cure cancer” - “yes” - and here in Seattle we can use the connection between the biological sciences and cloud technologies better than anywhere else.
Infectious diseases - connections are drawn to cancer and beyond
Every fifth cancer worldwide can be associated with infectious diseases. We at the center of Fred Hutchinson have long understood the complex links between infection and cancer; Last year, we launched an
integrated research center dedicated to the study of these links in order to prevent many types of cancer, which are a heavy burden for humanity. We are also considering new partnerships in the public and private sectors for further research on the intersection of infectious diseases and cancer.
With regard to HIV prevention, the last two years have been significant for the Fred Hutchinson Center-based HIV Vaccine Test Network -
HIV Vaccine Trials Network , which launched
four unprecedented efficacy tests for HIV prevention in 2016 and 2017. Research on testing new vaccines and other ways to prevent HIV infection will bring together 12,200 volunteers around the world. We all look forward to the final results of the study in 2020 and 2021.
I have been researching cancer all my career and I see more progress in this area in the past few years than in the previous fifty. And I look forward to what 2018 will bring us.
I look forward to talking with you next year and invite you to share your
thoughts.
Respectfully,
Gary Gillilland, MD, PhD, President and Director,
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research CenterTranslated by Nick Sestrin , SENS Volunteers Group