Season 2

Vaccines have long been used to treat many diseases, but cancer has not historically been one of them. At the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dr. Vinod Balachandran and others are working to change that. In this episode, Chuck talks with Dr. Balachandran about his work...

In the past few decades, we have made huge strides when it comes to reducing mortality from lung cancer. Gone are the days when cigarettes were allowed in restaurants – improvements in prevention, screening, and treatment for lung cancer have completely changed the narrative. In this episode, Alicia...

More than a decade ago, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania treated a patient with her own T cells, which had been engineered to recognize and target the cancer cells in her body. The treatment, which is called CAR T cell immunotherapy, is now widely used for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, ...

New research is helping us to better understand the connections between nutrition and cancer risk. Alicia and Chuck talked with Mathilde Touvier, one of the global researchers studying this issue. She’s a nutritional epidemiologist based in France, and her lab is looking at the effects certain food ...

Huge strides have been made in diagnosing and treating childhood cancers, but most of those benefits are seen in the wealthiest countries in the world. This leaves hundreds of thousands of children in need of adequate cancer care. Dr. André Ilbawi with the World Health Organization tells us about th...

Bladder cancer used to be a disease with very few effective treatment options. That was until two new strategies came on the scene: immunotherapies and antibody drug conjugates. These approaches have changed the way doctors treat bladder cancer, and prolonged the lives of many patients. Dr. Tom Powl...

Radioligand therapy is a form of precise cancer treatment that targets specific cells with a radioactive substance. It’s used to treat prostate cancer and some types of neuroendocrine cancer, delivering powerful results with minimal impact on patient quality of life. Dr. Michael Morris helped develo...

A lot of cancers don’t get diagnosed until the disease is somewhat advanced. Dr. Bea Bakshi founded her company, C the Signs, to change that. They use artificial intelligence to comb through medical records and identify when a patient should be screened for cancer – and it catches disease far earlie...

A new blood test called Cancerguard is pushing the boundaries of cancer early detection. The test is widely available, and has the ability to screen for more than 50 cancer types. In this episode, Chuck talks with Dr. Tom Beer of Exact Sciences, the company behind the Cancerguard test.  Downloa...

The earlier a cancer is detected, the more possibilities there are for effective treatment. In this episode, Chuck and Alicia talk with Dr. Nickolas Papadopoulos about his research into how indications of cancer can show up in the blood, long before symptoms arise. Downloadable transcript here