Immunotherapy
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At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our researchers have earned worldwide renown for developing successful treatments that harness the immune system to fight cancer, much as it naturally eliminates everyday infections like the common cold.
The Hutchinson Center's Nobel prize-winning work on bone-marrow transplantation provided the first example of the power of the human immune system to cure cancer. Today, we continue to lead this revolutionary field, called immunotherapy, which yields effective cancer treatments with far fewer side effects than conventional drugs, radiation or surgery.
We've already used immunotherapy to boost survival rates for patients with leukemia and other blood cancers. More recently we've shown it has promise for treating aggressive skin and kidney cancers.
We're uniquely poised to apply our dramatically different treatment approach to thousands more patients who suffer from breast, ovarian, prostate and other common cancers. As we work to expand our efforts in immunotherapy in the coming years, our goal is to have the same impact on these cancers that bone-marrow transplantation has had on leukemia.
Discoveries that save lives
Some of the world’s most significant immunotherapy breakthroughs have occurred at the Hutchinson Center. These achievements have occurred in several major areas, including:
T-cell therapy to target and
destroy harmful cancer cells
Our researchers were the first to show that rare disease-fighting cells called T-cells can be extracted from patients, multiplied in large quantities and infused back into patients to treat viral diseases. No other cancer center in the country is as advanced or sophisticated as the Hutchinson Center in this area of immunotherapy.
Our researchers have established that T-cell therapy can boost the body's ability to fight disease in patients with viral diseases, such as cytomegalovirus and HIV, and cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma, melanoma and breast cancer. In the case of melanoma and breast cancer, researchers have witnessed striking regressions in a small number of patients with tumors that were resistant to conventional therapies.
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 Dr. Cassian Yee and colleagues reported the first known successful use of a melanoma patient’s own cloned T-cells as the sole therapy to put his advanced solid-tumor cancer into long-term remission. Two years after a 52-year-old Oregon man received an infusion of 5 billion copies of his own CD4+ T-cells, a type of white blood cell that attacks a specific or foreign protein associated with his cancer, he continued to be cancer-free. Because Yee's findings represented only one patient, he plans to conduct broader trials in hopes of confirming the results. |
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 Dr. Stanley Riddell and colleagues discovered a rare subset of T-cells capable of surviving in patients for extended periods, providing a long-lasting, renewable source of cancer-fighting immune cells. The identification of these "central memory" T-cells is a breakthrough that promises to dramatically improve the clinical success of T-cell therapy. |
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Antibody-based treatments to deliver therapy to tumor cells
Antibody-based therapy uses small proteins to directly attack tumors or to allow therapeutic agents to be delivered directly to cancer cells, sparing healthy cells and thus minimizing harmful side effects. Our scientists are leaders in using antibodies either alone or attached to radioactive molecules or chemotherapy to treat cancer.
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Our investigators, led by Drs. Irwin Bernstein and Fred Applebaum, were instrumental in the development of Mylotarg®, an effective leukemia treatment that became the first FDA-approved antibody-targeted chemotherapy. This agent improves delivery of the lifesaving drug by directly targeting cancer cells, sparing healthy tissue. |
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Our researchers, including Dr. David Maloney, also helped to pioneer the use of an antibody for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which led to the development of the first medication of its kind approved in the United States for the treatment of malignant disease — one of the world's top-selling cancer drugs, Rituxan™. |
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Our investigators helped to develop antibodies tagged with radiation that can be delivered directly to cancer cells. This therapy allows the use of higher doses of radiation with less toxicity to the patient. Our scientists, including Dr. Oliver Press, were among the first to test the technique in lymphoma patients and were instrumental in the FDA approval of Bexxar™ for treatment of follicular lymphomas. |
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Dr. Thomas Spies and colleagues discovered a molecule, called MICA, that is released by cancer cells and acts as a shield, preventing immune cells from coming into contact with and killing the cancer cells. The researchers plan to test the therapeutic potential of an antibody they developed to neutralize MICA's immune-blocking ability. |
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Transplants that use donor immune cells to fight cancer
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 Our researchers, led by Dr. Rainer Storb, pioneered development of a milder stem-cell transplant, sometimes called a "mini" transplant, which has proven successful for treating older or medically unstable patients with blood cancer, who tend to tolerate traditional therapies poorly. In the procedure, patients receive a mixture of donated immune-system cells, including T-cells, which target the cancer in question. |
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Mini-transplant procedures can usually occur without a hospital stay, and patients experience fewer of the typical side effects, such as hair loss. We are continuing to make advances in this area and have helped to export this approach to hundreds of transplant centers around the world, where it has become the standard of care for a variety of blood cancers. |
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Vaccines to stimulate the immune system and fight cancer relapse
Just as vaccination boosts the immune system to prevent diseases like polio and chicken pox, our initial work shows that vaccines against tumors have the potential to provide long-lasting, nontoxic protection to prevent cancer relapse.
Our investigators are focused on developing vaccines for solid tumors, such as breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreas cancer.
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Dr. Nora Disis has led the development and testing of vaccines to prevent the recurrence of breast and ovarian cancers. |
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Work led by Dr. Celestia Higano is investigating the effectiveness of vaccine treatments for prostate cancer patients. Our researchers are also pioneering ways to combine cancer vaccines and T-cell therapies to further enhance treatment and improve survival. |
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How you can help
Donate now to support immunotherapy research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, or call 206.667.4399 or 800.279.1618.
1100 Fairview Ave. N. PO Box 19024 Seattle, WA 98109
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