Originally published February 19, 2019
The field of immunotherapy has come a long way in recent years, but where is it going next? Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, FASCO, will address this question during his keynote lecture at the 2019 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, “The Future of Immunotherapy.”
Dr. Wolchok is a medical oncologist and the Lloyd J. Old/Virginia and Daniel K. Ludwig Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). He is also chief of the Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service, director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and the associate director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy.
“The field writ large is obviously very popular and busy,” Dr. Wolchok said. “I think we have to be thoughtful about our expectations and not overpromise because the next steps may take longer for us than, say, the rapid development of anti–PD-1 therapies.”
Novel Pathways in the Pipeline
During his lecture, Dr. Wolchok will discuss some of the novel immunotherapy pathways under investigation, such as OX40 and GITR. These are unlike the now familiar CTLA-4 and PD-1 pathways, which he said act as molecular breaks. “OX40 is more of an accelerator type of pathway,” he said, and GITR also acts as an agonist pathway in the immune system.
Read more in ASCO Daily News.
