IIT2024 Talk - Improving Cancer Treatment with Rakesh Jain, Jan 14, 2024

Improving Cancer Treatment: From Math Modeling to Mice to Patients

Speaker: Dr Rakesh Jain, Cook Professor Harvard Medical School

Cancerous tumors require blood vessels to grow and spread to other organs. Dr. Jain demonstrated that the blood vessels of tumors are abnormal – not only in their structure, but also in their function. This abnormality prevents treatments from reaching and attacking tumor cells. Dr. Jain proposed a novel concept that “normalizing” tumor vessels would allow cancer therapies to penetrate the tumor and to function more effectively. He then went on to show in animals and cancer patients, that antiangiogenic drugs originally deigned to destroy tumor vessels can, paradoxically, also repair them, creating a window of opportunity to attack the cancer most effectively. This concept led to the FDA approvals of 7 combinations of antiangiogenic therapy and immunotherapy for lung, liver, kidney, and endometrial cancers in the past 5 years. It also opened doors to treating various non-cancerous diseases, such as macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness, and tuberculosis.

If you're interested in learning more about Dr Jain's work, Steele Labs at Harvard is offering this upcoming course.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2024 – THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2024
39TH ANNUAL CRITICAL ISSUES IN TUMOR MICROENVIRONMENT:
ANGIOGENESIS, METASTASIS, AND IMMUNOLOGY
For comprehensive information about this course, including faculty, schedule, and registration,