Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Relative to a potential cancer vaccine. Doctor Gaddy, good morning morning.
Great to have you here. And I know that this
has been something that oncologists and researchers have thought might
be in the future, using an individual's own genetic material
(00:20):
and crafting specific medicines to treat cancer. But this item
that came out the other day kind of raises the
stakes and I want to get your take on it
as someone who works in the field. This is from
Larry Ellison of Oracle. He's a CEO, and he was
talking about this big AI project and one of the applications,
he says, is developing what do you call an mr
(00:43):
NA vaccine for cancer. What's your view of where we
are on this frontier?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So am I A new vaccines have been in clinical
trials for the past few years, for about five to
six years now, and the technology is developing slowly. We
don't have any of them approved yet, but the preliminary
studies look fairly promising and therefore there is a fair
amount of excitement in this concept of using mr and
(01:11):
E vaccines for treating various different cancers.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and Ellison is not a doctor. Here's what
he said. Here's the quote. One of the most exciting
things we're working on is our cancer vaccine, and he says,
you can do an early cancer detection with a blood test,
and using AI to look at that blood test, you
can find the cancers that are actually seriously threatening that
(01:35):
individual and have a vaccine ready for that individual patient
in forty eight hours. Is that realistic in your.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
View right now? I think it is something that people
are looking at. How realistic it is only time will tell,
But there is a lot of excitement in this early
cancer detection projects that different folks are looking at. The
challenge is to identify the actual cancers from a lot
(02:05):
of noise. When we look at blood based tests, there
is a lot of information that we get, most of
which may not be relevant to cancer because we have
a lot of protein circulating in our body and it's
difficult to say which one of these would actually represent
a cancer that's threatening life threatening. And AI has the
(02:26):
possibility of helping with that, separating the wheat from the chaff.
But still we have more concrete data. This would be
this would not be ready for prime time, and Faery.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Right, not ready for primetime, I would hope, and I'm
saying amen, to an email I got from a listener,
and I agree with him. He said, I would hope
that after COVID that that we could agree that extreme
caution should be observed concerning m r n A vaccines.
(03:01):
What's your view in general of mRNA vaccines.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I think mRNA vaccines the concept itself is very scientifically sound. Basically,
mRNA you inject mRNA is into the person's body, and
those mRNA will target, will take over the human cells,
those specific immune cells and expose them to the proteins
(03:27):
that they are designed to code it to develop. And
therefore those particular immune cells in our body will target
any cell that has those particular proteins. So in theory,
it is very interesting and scientifically sound. The challenge is
human cancer cells have so many different proteins, and so
(03:47):
they mutate so rapidly that it will be important to
identify which of those proteins are actually relevant at that
particular time, and AI has a place in that it
can potentially try to identify those proteins which are most
relevant from any other protein that may be present within
the cancer cell and help us target mr and against
(04:10):
those specific proteins. So in that sense, it's very promising, fascinating,
but like I said earlier, I will wait to see
how it develops in the next few years to determine
how useful this is going to be.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right, And I think one of the things that Ellison
is so excited about, and I frankly am too, is
the possibility. You know, there's always an upside in the
downside to all technology, but the one of the great
upsides potentially the AI is the speed at which it
can develop theories or explore theories and develop potential solutions,
(04:48):
in this case, to cancer. So I think it's an
exciting possibility and absolutely what I'm hearing you saying though,
is that we have to be really careful because identifying
specific applications for individual patients is a tricky enterprise at best.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Right, But if anything can do it, AI can help
us quite a lot, because, like you just mentioned, we
can identify different proteins with rapid speed and be able
to target a person what cancer protein is specifically relevant
to that particular individual and create truly individualized MR vaccines
(05:29):
that are specific for that person. So that part is
very very exciting.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Does it depend, also, doctor Gandy, on the type of
cancer we're talking about, because one thing we've all learned
over the years is that not all cancer has created.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Equal absolutely, because different cancers activate the immune system differently.
And this particular technology, even though it's using mRNA, which
is supposed to be very immunogenic or activates the immune
system quite rapidly, we have to identify those routines within
those cancers that are most likely to activate the immune
(06:03):
system and kill those cancer cells. So I'm pretty sure
that not all cancers will respond in the same way.
The cancers that I think will respond the most or
the most data we would get is in cancers like malanoma,
lung can certain types of lung cancer, bladder cancer, cancers
(06:24):
where immunotherapy is routinely used today. So those are the
cancers that I think will be most likely to respond
to this new vaccine, at least to begin with, with
the technology that we.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Currently exciting possibilities. Doctor, thank you so much for the
time this morning. We appreciate it. I have a good day.
That's doctor r a Parkish Organy medical oncologist at Nebraska
Medicine
Relative to a potential cancer vaccine. Doctor Gaddy, good morning morning.
Great to have you here. And I know that this
has been something that oncologists and researchers have thought might
be in the future, using an individual's own genetic material
(00:20):
and crafting specific medicines to treat cancer. But this item
that came out the other day kind of raises the
stakes and I want to get your take on it
as someone who works in the field. This is from
Larry Ellison of Oracle. He's a CEO, and he was
talking about this big AI project and one of the applications,
he says, is developing what do you call an mr
(00:43):
NA vaccine for cancer. What's your view of where we
are on this frontier?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So am I A new vaccines have been in clinical
trials for the past few years, for about five to
six years now, and the technology is developing slowly. We
don't have any of them approved yet, but the preliminary
studies look fairly promising and therefore there is a fair
amount of excitement in this concept of using mr and
(01:11):
E vaccines for treating various different cancers.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah. Yeah, and Ellison is not a doctor. Here's what
he said. Here's the quote. One of the most exciting
things we're working on is our cancer vaccine, and he says,
you can do an early cancer detection with a blood test,
and using AI to look at that blood test, you
can find the cancers that are actually seriously threatening that
(01:35):
individual and have a vaccine ready for that individual patient
in forty eight hours. Is that realistic in your.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
View right now? I think it is something that people
are looking at. How realistic it is only time will tell,
But there is a lot of excitement in this early
cancer detection projects that different folks are looking at. The
challenge is to identify the actual cancers from a lot
(02:05):
of noise. When we look at blood based tests, there
is a lot of information that we get, most of
which may not be relevant to cancer because we have
a lot of protein circulating in our body and it's
difficult to say which one of these would actually represent
a cancer that's threatening life threatening. And AI has the
(02:26):
possibility of helping with that, separating the wheat from the chaff.
But still we have more concrete data. This would be
this would not be ready for prime time, and Faery.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Right, not ready for primetime, I would hope, and I'm
saying amen, to an email I got from a listener,
and I agree with him. He said, I would hope
that after COVID that that we could agree that extreme
caution should be observed concerning m r n A vaccines.
(03:01):
What's your view in general of mRNA vaccines.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I think mRNA vaccines the concept itself is very scientifically sound. Basically,
mRNA you inject mRNA is into the person's body, and
those mRNA will target, will take over the human cells,
those specific immune cells and expose them to the proteins
(03:27):
that they are designed to code it to develop. And
therefore those particular immune cells in our body will target
any cell that has those particular proteins. So in theory,
it is very interesting and scientifically sound. The challenge is
human cancer cells have so many different proteins, and so
(03:47):
they mutate so rapidly that it will be important to
identify which of those proteins are actually relevant at that
particular time, and AI has a place in that it
can potentially try to identify those proteins which are most
relevant from any other protein that may be present within
the cancer cell and help us target mr and against
(04:10):
those specific proteins. So in that sense, it's very promising, fascinating,
but like I said earlier, I will wait to see
how it develops in the next few years to determine
how useful this is going to be.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Right, And I think one of the things that Ellison
is so excited about, and I frankly am too, is
the possibility. You know, there's always an upside in the
downside to all technology, but the one of the great
upsides potentially the AI is the speed at which it
can develop theories or explore theories and develop potential solutions,
(04:48):
in this case, to cancer. So I think it's an
exciting possibility and absolutely what I'm hearing you saying though,
is that we have to be really careful because identifying
specific applications for individual patients is a tricky enterprise at best.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Right, But if anything can do it, AI can help
us quite a lot, because, like you just mentioned, we
can identify different proteins with rapid speed and be able
to target a person what cancer protein is specifically relevant
to that particular individual and create truly individualized MR vaccines
(05:29):
that are specific for that person. So that part is
very very exciting.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Does it depend, also, doctor Gandy, on the type of
cancer we're talking about, because one thing we've all learned
over the years is that not all cancer has created.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Equal absolutely, because different cancers activate the immune system differently.
And this particular technology, even though it's using mRNA, which
is supposed to be very immunogenic or activates the immune
system quite rapidly, we have to identify those routines within
those cancers that are most likely to activate the immune
(06:03):
system and kill those cancer cells. So I'm pretty sure
that not all cancers will respond in the same way.
The cancers that I think will respond the most or
the most data we would get is in cancers like malanoma,
lung can certain types of lung cancer, bladder cancer, cancers
(06:24):
where immunotherapy is routinely used today. So those are the
cancers that I think will be most likely to respond
to this new vaccine, at least to begin with, with
the technology that we.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Currently exciting possibilities. Doctor, thank you so much for the
time this morning. We appreciate it. I have a good day.
That's doctor r a Parkish Organy medical oncologist at Nebraska
Medicine
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