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15

The Cancer Warrior Unleashed

2011

Rising stars Drs.

Marcus Butler

and Naoto

Hirano are

recruited from

the U.S. for the

immunotherapy

program.

2009

Immune Therapy

Program is

launched at

Princess Margaret

Cancer Centre.

2013

First adoptive

T-cell therapy

clinical trial opens

in Canada at The

Princess Margaret.

2015

Clinical leadership

is expanded with

Dr. Lillian Siu joining

the immunotherapy

program.

2016

Over 180 active

immunotherapy

clinical trials are

underway at The

Princess Margaret,

including Canada’s

first gene-engineered

T-cell trial.

Unleashing the

Immune System

The immune system has to be able to take on

invaders without damaging normal tissue. To

do that, it must turn off or limit its attack at key

points – scientists call these immune checkpoints.

A type of immunotherapy called immune

checkpoint blockade uses drugs to get the

immune system to ignore the stop signals at these

checkpoints. Conceptually, we think about this as

releasing the brakes on the immune system.

Immune checkpoint blockade has shown

impressive results when tested against certain

cancers.

Currently, there are many studies taking

place at The Princess Margaret that are focused

on improving our understanding of immune

checkpoint blockades for multiple types of cancer.

immune CHECKPOINT BLOCKADE

Immunotherapy at The Princess Margaret

OF DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION

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