Using the Body's Own Immune System Against Tumours: Could Immunotherapy Cure Cancer?

Immunotherapy uses the person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells. Promising results have made some people believe that immunotherapy is the cure for cancer. However, it is not the entire story. To answer the question, Elahe will tell the story of cancer immunotherapy, from early observations of the immune system fighting cancer in ancient Egypt and ‘‘clinical’’ trials conducted by mad scientists in the 1900’s to the latest achievements in the field. Attendees will also be shown exciting images of the tumor environment (in which it looks like a small galaxy).

Elahe Shenasa is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Oncology Program at UBC. Her thesis focuses on implementing and developing new technologies to obtain a more detailed picture of cancer, immune cell interactions and their surrounding environment. By linking the information obtained from these complex pictures to the patient’s follow-up data, she aims to discover markers that can select patients who are most likely to respond to a certain treatment.