A cure
for cancer has been called the last frontier of medicine. President
Obama recently called for a "moonshot" to find safe and effective ways
of eliminating cancer cells from our bodies.
Words such as "frontier" and "moonshot" are the language of
distance. But for Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute
in Bethesda, Md., the cure is very near—inside our own bodies, in fact.
Rosenberg is one of the leading developers of immunotherapy
as a cancer-fighting tool. Instead of trying to bring such external
forces as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy to bear on a tumor,
immunotherapy harnesses the body's own abilities to attack cancer cells.
It's been 40 years since Rosenberg created Interleukin-2,
the world's first effective immunotherapy technique. In that time,
immunotherapy has gone from being an obscure possibility to the
foundation of a national cancer strategy that includes
multimillion-dollar grants to universities, massive investment by
pharmaceutical companies, and billions raised in initial public
offerings.
All that progress doesn't mean we have a cure. Immunotherapy
has been our most promising weapon to battle cancer, but it still does
far better with cancers of the blood than with the more common solid
tumors.
"Until we can apply effective treatments to all
innocent people who develop cancer," Rosenberg said, "there's plenty of
work to be done."
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