We sit down with Dr. Katy Rezvani, world-renowned physician-scientist, leader, and innovator in cancer immunotherapy. She’s pioneering groundbreaking research at MD Anderson Cancer Center in cell therapy that is transforming how we approach cancer and offering new hope to patients who have exhausted all conventional options.

With warmth, compassion, and clarity, Dr. Rezvani shares her journey from childhood dreams of curing cancer to becoming a global leader in immune therapy. She gives heartwarming success stories from patients whose lives are being changed by her work and reflects on the urgency of making these therapies more effective and accessible worldwide.

Dr. Rezvani also opens up about the challenges and triumphs of pioneering new treatments in cell therapy (including CAR NK and CAR-T), the innovations her team is bringing to life, and the brighter future these breakthroughs hold for patients and their families.

This conversation is equal parts science and soul, reminding us that at the heart of every medical breakthrough is the hope of changing lives.

Mentioned Resources:

CanCare- www.cancare.org

About the Guests:

Dr. Katy Rezvani is the Vice President and Head of the Institute for Cell Therapy Discovery & Innovation at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she leads groundbreaking work in cell and immune therapies. A recipient of numerous awards, she is dedicated to developing innovative treatments for patients who have exhausted standard options. Her vision and leadership are helping bring life-saving hope to patients and families worldwide.

Love the podcast? You’ll be moved by the book. The Hope in the Face of Cancer book shares inspiring, real stories from survivors, caregivers, and healthcare heroes. Raw, uplifting, and full of heart—for anyone seeking hope and connection. Get your copy: cancare.org/hopebook.

About Our Host:

Darcie Champagne Wells is the President and CEO of CanCare, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to providing support to the cancer community by pairing cancer patients with survivors. Since joining in November 2020 as the third President & CEO, Darcie has driven significant growth, increasing one-to-one support matches by 45% and healthcare referrals by 66%. In 2022, she initiated the Impact Acceleration Initiative to further expand support for cancer patients and caregivers. Her leadership has earned her recognition as a “Most Admired CEO” and “Woman Who Means Business” by the Houston Business Journal, and national “Fundraiser of the Year” by RAISE. Darcie holds a BS in Business Administration from Louisiana State University and an MBA from the University of Houston.

https://www.cancare.org/

https://www.facebook.com/CanCareInc

https://www.instagram.com/cancare_inc

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Darcie Wells: 00:00:00

Welcome to hope in the face of cancer, where we

Darcie Wells: 00:00:02

share real stories of courageous people in their cancer journey.

Darcie Wells: 00:00:05

Today, we are incredibly honored to have with us Dr Katy Rezvani,

Darcie Wells: 00:00:09

Vice President and head of the Institute for Cell Therapy

Darcie Wells: 00:00:12

discovery and innovation at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr

Darcie Wells: 00:00:17

Rezvani is leading groundbreaking research in cell

Darcie Wells: 00:00:20

therapy that's changing the way we approach cancer treatment,

Darcie Wells: 00:00:23

offering new hope for patients who have run out of options. You

Darcie Wells: 00:00:27

may recognize Dr rizvani from her feature in our book hope in

Darcie Wells: 00:00:30

the face of cancer, where we shared her deeply inspiring

Darcie Wells: 00:00:34

journey from her childhood dreams of curing cancer to

Darcie Wells: 00:00:37

becoming a trailblazer in immunotherapy. Dr rizvani was

Darcie Wells: 00:00:41

also this year's keynote speaker at kan cares hope survivorship

Darcie Wells: 00:00:45

luncheon, where we shared deep insights into the future of

Darcie Wells: 00:00:49

cancer treatment and the innovation shaping that future.

Darcie Wells: 00:00:52

Her work in cell therapy has the potential to revolutionize

Darcie Wells: 00:00:55

cancer treatment, especially for those who have exhausted all

Darcie Wells: 00:00:59

conventional options. In today's conversation, we'll explore her

Darcie Wells: 00:01:03

inspiring journey, the advancements happening in cell

Darcie Wells: 00:01:06

therapy and how these innovations are providing a

Darcie Wells: 00:01:08

brighter future for patients and their families. Dr Rezvani,

Darcie Wells: 00:01:12

thank you so much for joining us.

Darcie Wells: 00:01:14

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Thank you very much. Darcie, it's an honor to

Darcie Wells: 00:01:17

be here.

Darcie Wells: 00:01:18

Well, it was so amazing to have you as our

Darcie Wells: 00:01:21

keynote speaker for our luncheon this year, and everyone

Darcie Wells: 00:01:25

afterward was just so inspired and hopeful for what's happening

Darcie Wells: 00:01:30

in the future of medicine and what you're doing. So I can't

Darcie Wells: 00:01:32

wait to explore that with our audience today, but I really

Darcie Wells: 00:01:36

want to start you've got such a fascinating story and your

Darcie Wells: 00:01:41

passion for medicine started at a very early age. In fact, you

Darcie Wells: 00:01:47

shared in the book about an entry into an early year book

Darcie Wells: 00:01:51

when you were nine years old, about you curing cancer. Take us

Darcie Wells: 00:01:55

back a little bit to your childhood and what really

Darcie Wells: 00:02:00

inspired this passion for medicine. Yeah.

Darcie Wells: 00:02:04

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Thank you very much. Darcy, so as you know, I

Darcie Wells: 00:02:06

was I was born in Iran before the revolution, and it's

Darcie Wells: 00:02:12

interesting because I wasn't actually around anyone with

Darcie Wells: 00:02:16

cancer. I didn't have a loved one with a diagnosis of cancer,

Darcie Wells: 00:02:20

but I remember cancer always being a taboo word. People

Darcie Wells: 00:02:24

didn't speak about it. It was always kind of a hush hush when

Darcie Wells: 00:02:28

they did, it was always a sense of fear and hopelessness, and I

Darcie Wells: 00:02:32

think that's perhaps what was the driving force. Even as a

Darcie Wells: 00:02:37

child, I was wondering, why is this disease? Why does it seem

Darcie Wells: 00:02:41

so unsolvable? Why is it such a scary subject? People are

Darcie Wells: 00:02:48

fearful of talking about it, and I think that perhaps that's what

Darcie Wells: 00:02:53

drove my curiosity and sense of wanting to make a difference,

Darcie Wells: 00:02:59

and that's, that's what stayed at me, and that's why, as I

Darcie Wells: 00:03:02

mentioned in the book, I still have that little yearbook, one

Darcie Wells: 00:03:06

of the very few treasures that are brought with me when, when

Darcie Wells: 00:03:10

we escaped Iran after the revolution with my family. And

Darcie Wells: 00:03:14

then when I saw that entry, it kind of reminded me that I must

Darcie Wells: 00:03:18

have been like talking to about it to my friends, and I must

Darcie Wells: 00:03:22

have also stayed with them.

Darcie Wells: 00:03:24

Oh, that's that's incredible. So tell us a little

Darcie Wells: 00:03:28

bit how your experience as a refugee shaped you. I mean, you

Darcie Wells: 00:03:33

fled Iran when you were a young girl to England. Tell us a

Darcie Wells: 00:03:38

little bit about that. You know how that kind of created some

Darcie Wells: 00:03:41

building blocks for you, for your future.

Darcie Wells: 00:03:44

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Yeah, my father was in the army, in the

Darcie Wells: 00:03:47

Shah army, and perhaps that also explains why I always like using

Darcie Wells: 00:03:51

military analogies when I talk about, you know, immunotherapy.

Darcie Wells: 00:03:56

And I mean, of course, becoming a refugee shaped me profoundly.

Darcie Wells: 00:04:00

That's what if you were to speak to any refugees, I think they

Darcie Wells: 00:04:04

would say to it's a life changing event. It teaches you

Darcie Wells: 00:04:08

resilience, but it's also bring some insecurity, whether, as an

Darcie Wells: 00:04:14

immigrant, you always feel like you have to prove yourself and

Darcie Wells: 00:04:18

that you and that nothing can be taken for granted, especially

Darcie Wells: 00:04:22

when you lose everything. That sense of insecurity, I think,

Darcie Wells: 00:04:25

stays with you for the rest of your lives, but that insecurity

Darcie Wells: 00:04:30

also makes you work harder. At least it made me work harder. It

Darcie Wells: 00:04:35

gave me determination that I carried with me throughout my

Darcie Wells: 00:04:39

life and into science. So something positive certainly

Darcie Wells: 00:04:42

came out of it. And I learned very early on that persistence

Darcie Wells: 00:04:46

matters, especially when the path ahead is difficult

Darcie Wells: 00:04:53

Absolutely.

Darcie Wells: 00:04:54

So it was in your early days of medical school

Darcie Wells: 00:04:59

that. This immunology was really speaking to you. Tell us a

Darcie Wells: 00:05:04

little bit about, you know, how you became, you know, so focused

Darcie Wells: 00:05:08

that this may be my path,

Darcie Wells: 00:05:11

Dr Katy Rezvani,: yeah, the immune system. It just felt very

Darcie Wells: 00:05:15

intuitive to me. The immune our immune system is incredibly

Darcie Wells: 00:05:20

complex, but somehow it all fits. You have these different

Darcie Wells: 00:05:25

cells with very, very specific roles, and they work together to

Darcie Wells: 00:05:30

fight external enemies, such as viruses, bacteria, etc, and also

Darcie Wells: 00:05:38

internal enemies, cells like a rogue such as cancer, whilst at

Darcie Wells: 00:05:43

the same time trying not to cause damage to the body itself,

Darcie Wells: 00:05:51

and this balance between this complexity and order, it just

Darcie Wells: 00:05:56

totally fascinated me. And what is interesting about the immune

Darcie Wells: 00:06:00

system. It's a system that continuously adapts, it

Darcie Wells: 00:06:04

remembers, it protects, and it all feels very natural. At least

Darcie Wells: 00:06:10

it felt very natural to me, and I wanted to understand it more

Darcie Wells: 00:06:14

and eventually use it for therapeutics. And that's really

Darcie Wells: 00:06:19

what I still remember, like even the first paper that I read back

Darcie Wells: 00:06:24

in the late 80s, which was talking about the idea of using

Darcie Wells: 00:06:32

the immune system to fight cancer, and at the Time, that

Darcie Wells: 00:06:35

wasn't necessarily an accepted subject within within medicine,

Darcie Wells: 00:06:43

but it just felt so right. It just made sense,

Darcie Wells: 00:06:47

yeah, kind of knew that that was the right path for

Darcie Wells: 00:06:50

you, because, yeah, and it's amazing how far we've come in

Darcie Wells: 00:06:54

the decades since then. And we'll talk a little bit about

Darcie Wells: 00:06:57

that. You talk about an aha moment that you experienced

Darcie Wells: 00:07:03

during your rotation on the stem cell transplant floor when you

Darcie Wells: 00:07:07

were studying tell us a little bit about that.

Darcie Wells: 00:07:11

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Yeah, so I was doing my he oncology fellowship

Darcie Wells: 00:07:14

in London at the Hammersmith hospital, and then I was

Darcie Wells: 00:07:17

assigned to the stem cell transplant floor. And what

Darcie Wells: 00:07:22

struck me was seeing how a stem cell transplantation or bone

Darcie Wells: 00:07:27

marrow transplantation actually works. It not it's not just

Darcie Wells: 00:07:31

because of the chemotherapy or radiation that patients receive,

Darcie Wells: 00:07:35

but also because of the immune system of the healthy stem cells

Darcie Wells: 00:07:39

that are given to the patient. We call this the graft versus

Darcie Wells: 00:07:44

leukemia, or the graft versus tumor effect, and that's that

Darcie Wells: 00:07:47

was proof that immune cells, immune cells of the healthy

Darcie Wells: 00:07:52

donor, can recognize and fight cancer. So at the time, people

Darcie Wells: 00:07:57

were trying to reduce the intensity of the chemotherapy

Darcie Wells: 00:08:02

and drop the radiation as part of the preparatory regimen to

Darcie Wells: 00:08:06

try and lower the toxicity and and harness the power of that

Darcie Wells: 00:08:12

immune that graph versus leukemia, or that graph versus

Darcie Wells: 00:08:15

tumor effect. But even with reduced intensity conditioning,

Darcie Wells: 00:08:19

we were seeing a lot of toxicities and and that's why I

Darcie Wells: 00:08:23

that's when I was thinking and many others really, what if we

Darcie Wells: 00:08:27

could isolate this graft versus tumor effect without all of the

Darcie Wells: 00:08:32

toxicity? What if you can use the power of the immune system

Darcie Wells: 00:08:38

to fight the cancer without having to introduce all the

Darcie Wells: 00:08:42

toxicities related to chemotherapy and radiation, and

Darcie Wells: 00:08:46

that was what led, then to my path, moving to the National

Darcie Wells: 00:08:50

Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and then focusing all

Darcie Wells: 00:08:54

of my PhD and post doctoral work on trying to Understand the

Darcie Wells: 00:08:59

immune response against cancer and then trying to harness that

Darcie Wells: 00:09:03

therapeutically for treatment and cell therapy,

Darcie Wells: 00:09:08

that's incredible. Cell Therapy may be a new

Darcie Wells: 00:09:13

terminology for our listeners. So how would you, you know,

Darcie Wells: 00:09:17

explain cell therapy to the sixth grader.

Darcie Wells: 00:09:23

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Okay, well, I'll try cell therapy is about

Darcie Wells: 00:09:28

using living immune cells as medicine. So I already mentioned

Darcie Wells: 00:09:32

how immune cells are the soldiers that we have in our

Darcie Wells: 00:09:37

body that protects us against infections but also against

Darcie Wells: 00:09:40

cancers. So we can actually take immune cells, either from the

Darcie Wells: 00:09:45

patient or from a healthy donor, and what we can do is we can

Darcie Wells: 00:09:50

engineer them outside of the body and and basically give them

Darcie Wells: 00:09:55

like a GPS system, like a cancer seeking system. To help them

Darcie Wells: 00:10:01

better recognize cancer cells and kill those cancer cells and

Darcie Wells: 00:10:07

and so you can do all of this in the lab and then give it back to

Darcie Wells: 00:10:11

the patient. Give these engineered cells back to the

Darcie Wells: 00:10:14

patient like a blood transfusion, and these cells

Darcie Wells: 00:10:18

inside of the patient's body will grow and then they go and

Darcie Wells: 00:10:22

seek out the cancer cells, killing them whilst completely

Darcie Wells: 00:10:26

ignoring healthy cells. So instead of relying on only

Darcie Wells: 00:10:30

drugs, we're using the body's own defense system as a

Darcie Wells: 00:10:36

treatment. And that's basically that's why sometimes you may

Darcie Wells: 00:10:40

hear people refer to cell therapy as living drugs.

Darcie Wells: 00:10:45

Okay, that makes a lot of sense, and so exciting. I

Darcie Wells: 00:10:49

can I can understand how you get so excited to get up and go to

Darcie Wells: 00:10:54

work every day with with what you're doing. So, I mean, you've

Darcie Wells: 00:10:58

been focused on this for decades, what has been the most

Darcie Wells: 00:11:03

exciting things you've seen? I mean, looking back, the most

Darcie Wells: 00:11:08

exciting transformations that we've seen in Cell Therapy since

Darcie Wells: 00:11:12

you initially had that interest.

Darcie Wells: 00:11:16

Dr Katy Rezvani,: So car T cells really have changed cancer

Darcie Wells: 00:11:20

treatment. It's been a complete paradigm shift car T cells have,

Darcie Wells: 00:11:25

and we currently have a number of FDA approved car T cell

Darcie Wells: 00:11:29

products for blood cancers such as lymphoma, B cell lymphomas

Darcie Wells: 00:11:34

and multiple myeloma. So they're available. But car T cells come

Darcie Wells: 00:11:40

with certain challenges, and these include side effects. So

Darcie Wells: 00:11:46

side effects such as cytokine release syndrome, where patients

Darcie Wells: 00:11:50

can develop inflammation, high fevers, drop their blood

Darcie Wells: 00:11:54

pressure, neurotoxicities, etcetera, and that there are

Darcie Wells: 00:11:58

also delays in the manufacturing, because each car

Darcie Wells: 00:12:04

T cell product is made for specific patients, so it often

Darcie Wells: 00:12:09

takes weeks to manufacture. And with that, there comes the

Darcie Wells: 00:12:15

challenge of really the costs of these therapies. So I really do

Darcie Wells: 00:12:18

think car engineering has has resulted in a major, major

Darcie Wells: 00:12:23

advance in the field of cell therapies. Now we started

Darcie Wells: 00:12:27

looking at it in a different way, in that we used a different

Darcie Wells: 00:12:32

cell type called natural killer cells. Natural killer cells,

Darcie Wells: 00:12:35

which are again immune cells, part of our immune system, but

Darcie Wells: 00:12:39

these cells have the potential to be safer, and they can be

Darcie Wells: 00:12:44

produced off the shelf, which means that they can be ready and

Darcie Wells: 00:12:49

available when a patient needs them. And now, with new

Darcie Wells: 00:12:53

technologies like CRISPR, CRISPR engineering, we can engineer

Darcie Wells: 00:12:59

these cells with even more precision to have therapies that

Darcie Wells: 00:13:05

are even more potent and safer. So I think all of that together

Darcie Wells: 00:13:10

is making the field of cell therapy highly exciting for a

Darcie Wells: 00:13:14

researcher like me, but also potentially very promising for

Darcie Wells: 00:13:23

patients with cancer who have exhausted multiple different

Darcie Wells: 00:13:28

lines of treatment.

Darcie Wells: 00:13:30

Oh, absolutely. That is, it is so exciting. Can

Darcie Wells: 00:13:34

you paint a picture, maybe a a particular case that you could

Darcie Wells: 00:13:39

use to, you know, share with our listeners so they can kind of

Darcie Wells: 00:13:42

get this picture in their minds. You know, maybe a particular

Darcie Wells: 00:13:45

patient that you can use to illustrate what you've been

Darcie Wells: 00:13:49

working on.

Darcie Wells: 00:13:50

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Absolutely, I can think of a patient who

Darcie Wells: 00:13:56

received one of our cell therapies now, around six or

Darcie Wells: 00:13:59

seven years ago, he'd already had battled cancer for around 12

Darcie Wells: 00:14:06

years. Had been through 11 different lines of treatment,

Darcie Wells: 00:14:13

and really, by the time he came to us, he had no options left.

Darcie Wells: 00:14:19

But thankfully, this patient is doing very well now, after his

Darcie Wells: 00:14:23

remission, actually, I received a note from his eight year old

Darcie Wells: 00:14:27

granddaughter thanking us for giving her her grandpa back, and

Darcie Wells: 00:14:32

for giving her mum, her dad back, which is very I mean,

Darcie Wells: 00:14:37

it's, it's every time I think about it really brings tears to

Darcie Wells: 00:14:40

my eyes, and actually, I have that letter framed on my wall,

Darcie Wells: 00:14:44

and I see it every day, yes, and it it continuously. It grounds

Darcie Wells: 00:14:49

me and it reminds me that what we do doesn't just affect

Darcie Wells: 00:14:54

patients lives, but it affects entire families and entire

Darcie Wells: 00:14:58

groups of people who. Love one another.

Darcie Wells: 00:15:01

Yeah, that's incredible. I can imagine that's

Darcie Wells: 00:15:04

a huge dose of inspiration each and every day. So as you look to

Darcie Wells: 00:15:09

the future, I mean, you're already really shaping the

Darcie Wells: 00:15:14

transformation of cell therapy and, you know, moving kind of

Darcie Wells: 00:15:18

from the car T cell focus to the natural killer cell focus, what

Darcie Wells: 00:15:23

do you see? I mean, when you think about 10 years from now,

Darcie Wells: 00:15:27

20 years from now, how is medicine going to be different

Darcie Wells: 00:15:30

because of what you're doing every day?

Darcie Wells: 00:15:34

Dr Katy Rezvani,: You know, I sincerely hope to see cell

Darcie Wells: 00:15:37

therapies become standard for more cancers, including solid

Darcie Wells: 00:15:41

tumors, and for off the shelf therapies to become more widely

Darcie Wells: 00:15:47

available, so that we can reduce cost, increase access, and

Darcie Wells: 00:15:52

reduce barriers for patients to gain access to these potentially

Darcie Wells: 00:15:57

life saving therapies. At the moment, car T cells, as I

Darcie Wells: 00:16:00

mentioned, they're FDA approved for hematologic cancers, so

Darcie Wells: 00:16:05

getting them to start being effective for solid tumors. And

Darcie Wells: 00:16:10

by solid tumors, I mean pancreatic cancer, ovarian

Darcie Wells: 00:16:14

cancer, brain cancers like glioblastoma, breast cancer,

Darcie Wells: 00:16:18

colorectal cancer, these are much more challenging cancers,

Darcie Wells: 00:16:23

and that's partly because the cancer cells form barriers, and

Darcie Wells: 00:16:28

these barriers can be physical or chemical, to protect

Darcie Wells: 00:16:32

themselves, camouflage themselves from cell therapies,

Darcie Wells: 00:16:36

but we are already beginning to see impact with cell therapies,

Darcie Wells: 00:16:41

and I think with advances that we're seeing in cell

Darcie Wells: 00:16:44

engineering, in in the tools that are available, we will

Darcie Wells: 00:16:51

start seeing, I sincerely hope, that we will start seeing very

Darcie Wells: 00:16:57

similar type of responses in at least some of these solid

Darcie Wells: 00:17:02

tumors. So I'm very hopeful, and this is what we are now putting

Darcie Wells: 00:17:05

all our focus on

Darcie Wells: 00:17:07

making that transition to, you know,

Darcie Wells: 00:17:10

focusing on the solid tumors. Okay, that makes

Darcie Wells: 00:17:12

Dr Katy Rezvani,: sense, exactly. So what

Darcie Wells: 00:17:15

role do and can patients play in advancing this

Darcie Wells: 00:17:21

research. And, you know, I think as lay people, we often think

Darcie Wells: 00:17:24

that this is happening outside of us, and it's not something we

Darcie Wells: 00:17:29

can influence. But what role can folks like me or anyone facing

Darcie Wells: 00:17:34

cancer today do to really help advance what you're doing?

Darcie Wells: 00:17:39

Dr Katy Rezvani,: I think first and foremost, I want to say that

Darcie Wells: 00:17:43

receiving a diagnosis of cancer is, is, is earth shattering, and

Darcie Wells: 00:17:49

it's really overwhelming for for patients. And I think it's

Darcie Wells: 00:17:53

really important for patients to realize that there is, there is

Darcie Wells: 00:17:57

hope. Every day, breakthroughs are being made in in the

Darcie Wells: 00:18:03

treatment of cancer, and that I want our patients to understand

Darcie Wells: 00:18:07

that we are fighting this disease with them. Every single

Darcie Wells: 00:18:12

one of us has been affected, either directly, yes, by cancer

Darcie Wells: 00:18:17

or or indirectly through a loved one who's who's who's had a

Darcie Wells: 00:18:21

diagnosis of cancer. And I am totally in awe of our patients

Darcie Wells: 00:18:26

who who come and take part in our first in human trials. It is

Darcie Wells: 00:18:32

very scary to be told that this particular treatment has not

Darcie Wells: 00:18:37

been previously tested in patients or only a couple of

Darcie Wells: 00:18:40

patients, a handful of patients, have had these treatments.

Darcie Wells: 00:18:43

There's a lot of uncertainty in taking part in these sorts of

Darcie Wells: 00:18:48

therapies, and also knowing that you may not personally benefit

Darcie Wells: 00:18:53

from this, but it could potentially benefit patients in

Darcie Wells: 00:18:56

the future. So I would like to again reiterate to our patients

Darcie Wells: 00:19:02

that can you're not alone there. There are teams of people

Darcie Wells: 00:19:07

working every day to improve treatments and create new

Darcie Wells: 00:19:11

options. There's genuine reason for hope, and I believe that

Darcie Wells: 00:19:18

cell therapies will have huge impact in the field of medicine

Darcie Wells: 00:19:24

together, of course, with other modalities. I'm not saying that

Darcie Wells: 00:19:27

some therapies will replace chemotherapy or surgery or

Darcie Wells: 00:19:31

radiation, but is another option that will be available for

Darcie Wells: 00:19:38

patients with certain types of cancer, what

Darcie Wells: 00:19:42

do you think the biggest barrier is to cell

Darcie Wells: 00:19:45

therapies becoming more accessible? Is it? Is it really

Darcie Wells: 00:19:49

more of a cost issue? Or where does the struggle lie there?

Darcie Wells: 00:19:55

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's

Darcie Wells: 00:19:57

just different layers, as I mentioned. Mentioned currently,

Darcie Wells: 00:20:01

all the FDA approved car T cells, and also T cell receptor

Darcie Wells: 00:20:06

engineered T cells and till tumor immune, tumor infiltrating

Darcie Wells: 00:20:12

lymphocytes from for melanoma, they're all patient specific, so

Darcie Wells: 00:20:17

something that we call autologous. They're made from

Darcie Wells: 00:20:20

the patient, for the patient, yeah. So with that comes the

Darcie Wells: 00:20:25

problems of, okay, it takes, often weeks to manufacture the

Darcie Wells: 00:20:29

product. Many patients don't have the luxury of weeks to wait

Darcie Wells: 00:20:37

there with with that, there is also the incredible cost, the

Darcie Wells: 00:20:41

cost of these sorts of therapies is somewhere in the region of

Darcie Wells: 00:20:45

400 to $700,000 for one treatment, and then, because of

Darcie Wells: 00:20:53

the toxicities related to car with car T cells and TCR T

Darcie Wells: 00:20:57

cells, is toxicities are mentioned, such as cytokine

Darcie Wells: 00:21:00

release syndrome, neurotoxicity. These therapies have to be

Darcie Wells: 00:21:04

administered in very specialized centers where you have access to

Darcie Wells: 00:21:08

an intensive care unit, you have access to neurologists, to

Darcie Wells: 00:21:12

cardiologists, etc. This. These are not therapies that can be

Darcie Wells: 00:21:16

administered easily in the outpatient setting. So as a

Darcie Wells: 00:21:21

result of that, patients have to commit to come to large centers,

Darcie Wells: 00:21:27

a large cancer centers such as MD Anderson, where I where I

Darcie Wells: 00:21:31

work. And for many patients geographically, finding a center

Darcie Wells: 00:21:37

that provides these therapies becomes obviously a challenge.

Darcie Wells: 00:21:43

So when you add all of that together, you know the

Darcie Wells: 00:21:47

toxicities of the of the drug, the financial toxicities related

Darcie Wells: 00:21:53

to the cost of therapy, the geographical barriers to gaining

Darcie Wells: 00:21:59

access to that. Even in our country, only about 2020, 25% of

Darcie Wells: 00:22:06

patients who could benefit from the FDA approved car T products

Darcie Wells: 00:22:12

are gaining access. And so this, this is a bottleneck that I'm

Darcie Wells: 00:22:17

hoping that with the advent of these off the shelf, therapies

Darcie Wells: 00:22:23

that are already manufactured, available off the shelf, sitting

Darcie Wells: 00:22:28

in a freezer, waiting to be thought at a patient bedside,

Darcie Wells: 00:22:32

with a potentially more favorable side effect profiles

Darcie Wells: 00:22:36

in case cells so far have been safer, they don't cause the same

Darcie Wells: 00:22:41

degree of cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity as

Darcie Wells: 00:22:45

car T cells, but basically, the use of these off the shelf

Darcie Wells: 00:22:50

therapies could potentially then increase access for patients and

Darcie Wells: 00:22:56

then overcome the barriers that I just mentioned To

Darcie Wells: 00:22:59

you absolutely. So what is it going to take for us

Darcie Wells: 00:23:04

to be able to escalate the availability and access to

Darcie Wells: 00:23:10

natural killer cells? Because it sounds like you know, the more

Darcie Wells: 00:23:14

we can do that, the less these more expensive, harder to access

Darcie Wells: 00:23:18

treatments will be needed? Yes?

Darcie Wells: 00:23:22

Dr Katy Rezvani,: So that's an excellent question, and for

Darcie Wells: 00:23:25

that, of course, we need to do multi center studies to

Darcie Wells: 00:23:30

demonstrate that the the efficacy and the safety profile

Darcie Wells: 00:23:35

that we are seeing in our hands is being also observed with

Darcie Wells: 00:23:41

other teams, other groups, and there are a number of these

Darcie Wells: 00:23:44

multicenter studies that are currently ongoing with current

Darcie Wells: 00:23:49

case cells supported by different drug companies. At MD

Darcie Wells: 00:23:54

Anderson, now we also working towards running some of these

Darcie Wells: 00:24:00

multicenter studies with our partners to make these therapies

Darcie Wells: 00:24:04

available to patients beyond our institution. Ultimately, these

Darcie Wells: 00:24:11

multicenter studies can then lead to FDA approval, and

Darcie Wells: 00:24:16

getting the rights and the approval by FDA to kind of make

Darcie Wells: 00:24:21

this available to more patients. But, you know, there are

Darcie Wells: 00:24:24

regulatory steps that will need to be, yeah, fulfilled before we

Darcie Wells: 00:24:30

get to that stage again. I'm hopeful that in the next three

Darcie Wells: 00:24:33

years or so, we're going to be in a position where we will have

Darcie Wells: 00:24:37

an FDA approved current case cell product that would be

Darcie Wells: 00:24:39

available for patients?

Darcie Wells: 00:24:41

Oh, that would be so exciting. Well, another

Darcie Wells: 00:24:44

exciting area that I know you're you're very familiar with and

Darcie Wells: 00:24:49

your day to day work is how AI is really shaping cancer

Darcie Wells: 00:24:54

treatment. Tell us what that looks like for you. How are you

Darcie Wells: 00:24:57

utilizing AI on a day to day basis? Services to help your

Darcie Wells: 00:25:01

patients.

Darcie Wells: 00:25:02

Dr Katy Rezvani,: So at MD Anderson, we're very fortunate.

Darcie Wells: 00:25:05

We have an institute dedicated to data science and and they use

Darcie Wells: 00:25:14

machine learning, artificial intelligence for analysis of

Darcie Wells: 00:25:19

very large data sets. So for us in the field of cell therapy, AI

Darcie Wells: 00:25:24

can help us analyze the enormous amounts of biological data that

Darcie Wells: 00:25:30

we collect from each of the patients that are receiving our

Darcie Wells: 00:25:35

cell therapies and that are being enrolled on our trials. AI

Darcie Wells: 00:25:39

will allow us to identify patterns that have that may

Darcie Wells: 00:25:43

otherwise go unnoticed again. There's so much data that for a

Darcie Wells: 00:25:48

human being or for a group of human being to siphon through

Darcie Wells: 00:25:52

could often take weeks, if not months, whereas AI can do that

Darcie Wells: 00:25:56

very, very rapidly. So we are working very closely with our

Darcie Wells: 00:26:02

Institute for data science and oncology to feed the data that

Darcie Wells: 00:26:08

we are acquiring from all of our patients again, to help us then

Darcie Wells: 00:26:12

design the next generation of cell therapies that are even

Darcie Wells: 00:26:16

more potent, more effective, safer for therapy of our

Darcie Wells: 00:26:21

patients, it's really also helping accelerating. It's

Darcie Wells: 00:26:24

helping accelerate the pace of discovery for our patients, that

Darcie Wells: 00:26:28

was that's

Darcie Wells: 00:26:29

so exciting. I would imagine, when you look out

Darcie Wells: 00:26:33

at what's possible, it's super exciting, but then you look at

Darcie Wells: 00:26:39

the process that has to take place before you can get to

Darcie Wells: 00:26:43

that. How do you deal with just frustration, you know, of like

Darcie Wells: 00:26:47

not being able to make any this happen faster?

Darcie Wells: 00:26:51

Dr Katy Rezvani,: That's a great question. Of course, we want, we

Darcie Wells: 00:26:53

want everything to happen faster. There are patients

Darcie Wells: 00:26:57

waiting every day their lives that are being lost to cancer.

Darcie Wells: 00:27:02

We have to be methodical. We have to be very precise. We have

Darcie Wells: 00:27:06

to be very careful. We work very closely with with the FDA.

Darcie Wells: 00:27:12

Obviously, all of our clinical trials get a safe to proceed

Darcie Wells: 00:27:15

from, from FDA, and we want to move quickly with our therapies

Darcie Wells: 00:27:21

and without innovation, but without compromising safety. But

Darcie Wells: 00:27:26

just to give you a bit of an idea in the in the Institute for

Darcie Wells: 00:27:33

cell therapy, discovery and innovation, from a concept an

Darcie Wells: 00:27:37

idea to starting a clinical trial, it only takes us around

Darcie Wells: 00:27:42

15 months. We can do it in 12 to 15 months. So that's making sure

Darcie Wells: 00:27:47

that everything is done according to the regulatory

Darcie Wells: 00:27:53

processes that have been put in place by FDA. So we can be very

Darcie Wells: 00:27:56

fast in terms of also developing the next generation of cell

Darcie Wells: 00:28:04

therapies, yes, but if I could do it in 18 days,

Darcie Wells: 00:28:09

18 months, I'd be very, very snap your fingers and

Darcie Wells: 00:28:14

exactly so I certainly hear the hope that's, you Know, already

Darcie Wells: 00:28:20

here today, but coming even more so down the road. And like you

Darcie Wells: 00:28:23

said, you know, I ideally, just a few years from now, these

Darcie Wells: 00:28:27

treatments are going to be so much more accessible, so much

Darcie Wells: 00:28:31

more affordable for the person who's been diagnosed today. What

Darcie Wells: 00:28:39

message of hope would you want to leave with them today?

Darcie Wells: 00:28:45

Dr Katy Rezvani,: I think that I again, it's just, it's very

Darcie Wells: 00:28:50

overwhelming. I just had a very, very close friend of mine who,

Darcie Wells: 00:28:54

just two weeks ago, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Darcie Wells: 00:28:56

So I feel the pain. I share that pain, and I think I'm I'm

Darcie Wells: 00:29:05

relaying to you what I said to my friend is that there we are

Darcie Wells: 00:29:12

all working towards the same goal, yes, and there is all

Darcie Wells: 00:29:17

across the world, researchers, scientists, clinicians, nurses,

Darcie Wells: 00:29:21

everyone working together to find cures for cancers.

Darcie Wells: 00:29:26

Everyday, new therapies are being developed. And as

Darcie Wells: 00:29:31

overwhelming as this could be and as dark as those moments

Darcie Wells: 00:29:36

could be, I think it is important to keep that hope

Darcie Wells: 00:29:40

going. We had patients come to us to receive these therapies,

Darcie Wells: 00:29:45

patients who only had an option of either going to hospice or

Darcie Wells: 00:29:51

receiving our cell therapies. An example of a young man who on

Darcie Wells: 00:29:55

the day he received his cells his mom and. Who were in the

Darcie Wells: 00:30:00

room with him, called for the chaplain to come in the in the

Darcie Wells: 00:30:04

room because they really thought that he was not going to make

Darcie Wells: 00:30:07

it. Yeah, three days later, he was sitting up in bed playing

Darcie Wells: 00:30:11

Nintendo video games, and later he was discharged from hospital.

Darcie Wells: 00:30:16

I mean, these are moments that we are seeing, and that's why

Darcie Wells: 00:30:20

this is exactly what I said to my best friend in the world. And

Darcie Wells: 00:30:24

I said to her, Do not give up hope, because the faith of

Darcie Wells: 00:30:28

science and innovation is at an unprecedented rate now and and

Darcie Wells: 00:30:35

we just have to keep fighting. We have to keep fighting. Kens,

Darcie Wells: 00:30:40

it's

Darcie Wells: 00:30:40

so exciting what you're doing. And I can't wait

Darcie Wells: 00:30:43

to watch the breakthroughs as as they come through. And, you

Darcie Wells: 00:30:48

know, I think about people who are living with a stage four

Darcie Wells: 00:30:51

cancer diagnosis, especially, and looking at the prospect of

Darcie Wells: 00:30:57

the, you know, the treatments that may, may be coming down the

Darcie Wells: 00:31:00

road you know that can really change, you know, the course of

Darcie Wells: 00:31:03

their life, and it's so exciting, and we are so grateful

Darcie Wells: 00:31:06

for what you do every day, and we are so grateful that you're

Darcie Wells: 00:31:09

out there fighting for everyone you know, touched by this

Darcie Wells: 00:31:13

disease. So just want to say thank you on behalf of our

Darcie Wells: 00:31:16

entire community, not only for your your diligence and your

Darcie Wells: 00:31:22

tenacity in the research lab, but for your heart as well you

Darcie Wells: 00:31:28

care, and to see that combination of science and

Darcie Wells: 00:31:33

caring is beautiful. So thank you.

Darcie Wells: 00:31:37

Dr Katy Rezvani,: Thank you very much. Darcie, appreciate

Darcie Wells: 00:31:40

and thank you for joining us on this episode of

Darcie Wells: 00:31:42

hope in the face of cancer. Please subscribe and stay in

Darcie Wells: 00:31:47

tune to future episodes. And if you or someone you love is

Darcie Wells: 00:31:51

facing cancer today, CanCare is here to support you. Go to

Darcie Wells: 00:31:55

cancare.org for support until next time, remember, there is

Darcie Wells: 00:32:00

always hope in the face of cancer.