UP FRONT
and cancer. The most exciting investigative
work at that time seemed to be in the field
of identifying oncogenes and tumor sup-
pressor genes or studying signaling path-
ways. Now, of course, immunotherapy is a
huge topic, but years ago, people were just
starting to dream that, someday, cancer
immunology would be an important ele-
ment of cancer treatment.
Dr. Lopez, though, was persistent and
positive – two qualities that I admired
greatly. She said, “Cancer immunotherapy
is going to make it big.” And, as we all
know now, she was right.
How has the field of
hematology changed since
you were a young medical
student in Peru?
It is night and day. When I started
my career, we had limited treatment
options for patients with hematologic
malignancies, and our biggest ques-
tions were whether to start chemo-
therapy or palliative care. Fast-forward
to 2017, and the knowledge of tar-
geted therapy and immunotherapy
has exploded to the point where we
are within reach of cures for some of
these cancers.
For example, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration recently ap-
proved antibodies against PD-1, an
immune checkpoint molecule, as
frontline therapy for patients with
metastatic non-small cell lung cancer
whose tumors express its ligand, PD-L1.
If someone had told me 30 years ago
that we would one day be able to treat
lung cancer patients without chemo-
therapy, I would not have believed
him. But it’s happening!
Another major shift in medicine
is how quickly these advances and
new knowledge spread globally. Ten
or 20 years ago, immunotherapy may
not have made it to medical students
in Peru and other parts of the world
as rapidly as it does now, but the in-
terconnectivity we have today means
knowledge is disseminated in the
blink of an eye.
What accomplishments in your
career are you most proud of?
I am incredibly proud of my initial
contribution to the field of tumor
immunology – or how cancer af-
fects the body’s immune cells – that I
made during my training with Hyam
Levitsky, MD, and Drew M. Pardoll,
MD, PhD, at Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity. While I was there,