Question 1

How can a cancer cell be made to produce its own drug?

Accepted Answer

_The aim is a therapy produced by the tumor, against the tumor, in the tumor, so potent drugs stay local._

> We created the first genetic switches made out of DNA that only turn on in cancer cells. You inject them and they go everywhere, but they only flip on inside a cancer cell, like a light switch. We only get into about 1% of the cancer cells, so the cell produces a message, a smoke signal, that brings the immune system to attack the rest, like a domino chain reaction. The hard part is keeping all of it inside the tumor so you avoid off-target effects.

Source: [Tomorrow's Medicine, with Cyriac Roeding (eCornell Keynote)](https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K052126/)

Question 2

What did Jim Allison's checkpoint inhibitors miss, and how does early aim to complete the picture?

Accepted Answer

_Releasing the immune system's brake was a Nobel-winning breakthrough, but a brake release alone does not move the car._

> Checkpoint inhibitors are the biggest cancer innovation in the last 20 years, and Jim Allison won the Nobel Prize in 2018 for the insight that you first have to take the foot off the brake of the immune system. But even the best of them have on average a 35% response rate. The problem is, if you take your foot off the brake but never push the gas, the car doesn't move. You also have to stimulate the immune system, and we do that locally at the tumor. That is the second missing piece of the puzzle.

Source: [Tomorrow's Medicine, with Cyriac Roeding (eCornell Keynote)](https://ecornell.cornell.edu/keynotes/view/K052126/)

Q&A, immunotherapy

How can a cancer cell be made to produce its own drug?

What did Jim Allison's checkpoint inhibitors miss, and how does early aim to complete the picture?