Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, the only
NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Diego, is also one of only a few cancer centers in the country with the capability to explore all facets of immunotherapy, the use of drugs that stimulate the immune system to fight cancer. Our team — led by world renowned physician-scientist
Ezra Cohen, MD — has activated several clinical trials to explore novel immune checkpoint inhibitors and tumor vaccines.
In collaboration with the La Jolla Institute, the San Diego Center for Precision Immunotherapy (SDCPI) was formally recognized and established as an academic center at UC San Diego, co-directed by Ezra Cohen, MD, and Stephen Schoenberger, PhD, of the La Jolla Institute. The center aims to accelerate and translate scientific advances in immunology, and to develop and implement novel personalized cancer immunotherapies for patients now.
Videos from "Immunotherapy: Understanding the Hype and Hope"
Watch four education presentations from our recent event on the latest exciting developments in immunotherapy:
What is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is treatment that augments, retrains, or retargets the immune system to fight cancer. Your immune system consists of white blood cells, also called leukocytes, which help protect your body against infections and diseases. The goal of immunotherapy is to train these cells to attack cancer without harming healthy tissue.
The idea of immunotherapy has been around for a long time, but new developments promise to revolutionize the way we treat cancer.
Types of Immunotherapy
Contact Our Specialists
Clinical Trials
Spotlight on Innovation
Immunotherapy helps the body's immune system recognize cancer cells and attack them. Learn the history of this powerful weapon in the fight against cancer and how it's impacting cancer treatment today. Ezra Cohen, MD, joins show host David Granet, MD, to discuss the development of cancer vaccines, the importance of clinical trials and more.
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Hear about Rikki’s journey through diagnosis, the recommendation that he have his entire tongue removed, and finally to a clinical trial that is testing a combination of two immunotherapies.
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By the age of 4, Matthew Haemsch had undergone 16 rounds of chemotherapy and a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his adrenal gland
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Discovery could broaden effectiveness of emerging therapies for cancer and other diseases that are based on boosting the natural immune system response.
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Experimental cellular-immunotherapy may boost body’s ability to find and destroy specific cancers.
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Genetic phenomenon associated with low tumor invasiveness and longer patient survival could inform prognosis and help identify patients who would best respond to immunotherapy and other treatments.
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Immune cell manipulation plus chemotherapy achieves prostate cancer remission in mouse models where chemotherapy alone fails.
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View all immunotherapy news >
Support Our Immunotherapy Work
For information on how to support cancer immunotherapy, please contact Marissa Nemirofsky at mnemirofsky@ucsd.edu or 858-822-3585.
Your support will allow us to complete our new cell processing lab more quickly and dramatically accelerate our immunotherapy trials and research, delivering this transformative therapy and its life-saving results to our patients who need help now.