Immunology

I hope by now I’ve helped you understand why I am so excited about the future of immunotherapy research and treatment in British Columbia. There is currently a lot of excitement about “immune modulators,” agents that ramp up the immune system. These agents are just emerging from clinical trials and I predict they will become commonplace in a few years. By...

As a concept, immunotherapy fascinates a lot of people: the idea that the immune system can destroy cancer cells anywhere in the body brings a great sense of empowerment about our health. I’ve seen the way this resonates with patients, and I’m so pleased that in the last ten years we’ve established hard evidence that patients with a strong immune response...

In my last post, I mentioned that patients who mount a strong immune response against their cancer have a much better chance of survival. To build on this natural effect, we are developing personalized vaccines that teach the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells anywhere in the body. We are now ready to take this concept forward into a Phase...

My research at the BC Cancer Agency is focused on a brand new concept in treatment: personalized cancer vaccines. We’re working hard to get clinical trials underway in this area.

What are personalized cancer vaccines? The concept is fairly simple: we and others have shown that the immune system can recognize cancer cells as “foreign” and...

Hello everyone,

I want to start with thanks to Dr. Keith Humphries for his insightful posts on the future of stem cell research at the BC Cancer Agency.

We’re very pleased to welcome back Dr. Brad Nelson as guest blogger for March. As you may remember, Dr. Nelson blogged for us back in February 2011 about groundbreaking research...

Wow, January went by quickly—it is hard to believe this is my final blog post for the BC Cancer Foundation.

I’d like to conclude by talking about my role as a Co-Leader of the Radiation and Cancer Immunotherapy Team (RCIT) at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Island Centre (VIC) and the research we are conducting here.

Years ago, a team of oncologists and researchers at the BC...

Admit it. It’s true isn’t it? You love the dessert buffet line just as much as I do, or more maybe!? Well, you’re not the only one… It turns out cancer cells love sugar too. In fact, in order to grow and divide, cancer cells become addicted to glucose, a type of sugar derived from the foods we eat. As cancer cells divide and form large tumours, they eventually use up all of the available...

When I returned to Canada to find a suitable place to setup my laboratory, I was immediately drawn to the BC Cancer Agency Deeley Research Centre (DRC) because of the DRC’s vision and it’s Director, Dr. Brad Nelson. The sole mandate of the DRC was to focus research efforts on understanding how the immune system...

My research focus at the University of Pennsylvania eventually developed into cancer immunology research, and you may wonder how this happened. Well that is a great question, one I often begin to answer by explaining how there are very few human diseases that we have truly eradicated or cured. History tells us that our best successes have come from eradication of infectious diseases like...

Welcome and Happy New Year everyone!  My name is Julian Lum, and I am a scientist and Co-Leader of the Radiation and Cancer Immunotherapy Team at the BC Cancer Agency Deeley Research Centre in the Agency’s Vancouver Island Centre. I have the great honour of being the first guest blogger of 2012. I am dually honoured by this because 2012 is the year of the dragon in the Chinese Horoscope, and I...