Phil Gold's Legacy
91社区鈥檚 tradition of research into the basic nature of cancer extends back to 1965, when Dr. Phil Gold and his colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine discovered the carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA). Today, CEA is the most frequently used antigen for diagnosing cancer. Prof. Gold was a pioneering cancer researcher and the first Director of the 91社区 Cancer Centre (now the Goodman Cancer Institute).
While working in the Montr茅al General Hospital in the 1960s, Prof. Phil Gold saw many patients with cancer, who had undergone surgery to remove tumors and after their surgeries the patients had treatment with either radiation or with anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapy). Patients suffered horrible side effects from the treatments and Prof. Gold asked himself, 鈥渋s there nothing more specific about cancer cells that could be used as targets for therapy?鈥� He had read a science journal article that reported there was no marker yet for cancer and concluded that 鈥渘or would one ever be found鈥�. He disagreed and thought he should look for one.
The field of Immunology was exploding at that time, so Prof. Gold turned to immunology for the tools to help him in his search. One such immunological tool was antisera, the material in the blood that contains antibodies.听After much research, which you can read more about here, Prof. Gold identified a cancer marker. In 1965, he and his supervisor, Prof. Samuel Freedman, published this groundbreaking research of the first report of a cancer-specific marker in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The molecule was then named听carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)听to reflect both its cancer and embryonic expressions.
Next, Prof. Gold and his colleagues devised an assay where they were able to detect CEA in human plasma. In 1969, they published this method and this groundbreaking assay, the first time one could test human blood for a cancer biomarker. In 1972, the CEA assay was the first detection method of cancer that was approved for sale. Today, CEA detection continues to be used as a means of monitoring those patients with cancer.
Learn more about Phil Gold's story
The听Phil Gold Distinguished Lectureship
In 2017, the Goodman Cancer Centre inaugurated the Phil Gold Distinguished Lectureship to recognize the groundbreaking contribution Phil Gold has made to cancer research.听This year's Lectureship, happening on June 15 at 4pm in the Charles F. Martin Amphitheatre (McIntyre 504), will be given by Drew M. Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D and is entitled "Dissection of the Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Checkpoint-sensitive versus Checkpoint-resistant Cancer".
Drew M. Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Pardoll is the Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.听His expertise lies in immunotherapy and his research interests focus on Gene and Cell Therapy.听His more than 300 articles cover cancer vaccines, gene therapies, cancer prevention technologies, recombinant immune modulatory agents for specific pathways that regulate immunity to cancer and infectious diseases.
Dr. Pardoll attended Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his M.D., Ph.D., in 1982 and completed his Medical Residency and Oncology Fellowship in 1985. He then worked for three years at the National Institutes of Health as a Medical Staff Fellow. Dr. Pardoll joined the departments of oncology and medicine in 1988. Dr. Pardoll has published over 300 papers as well as over 20 book chapters on the subject of T cell immunology and cancer vaccines. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Cell, and has served as a member of scientific advisory boards for the Cancer Research Institute, the University of Pennsylvania Human Gene Therapy Gene Institute, Biologic Resources Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Harvard-Dana Farber Cancer Center, Cerus Corporation, Global Medical Products Corporation, Genencor Corporation, CellGenesys Corporation, Mojave Therapeutics, the American Association of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research.
Dr. Pardoll has made a number of basic advances in Cellular Immunology, including the discovery of gamma - delta T cells, NKT cells and interferon-producing killer dendritic cells. Over the past two decades, Dr. Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of dendritic cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system. He is an inventor of a number of immunotherapies, including GVAX cancer vaccines and Listeria monocytogenes based cancer vaccines. Dr. Pardoll鈥檚 basic immunology discoveries include the identification of gd-T cells, NKT cells and IKDC. He elucidated the role of Stat3 signaling in tumor immune evasion and in Th17 development, leading to the discovery that Stat3-driven Th17 responses promote carcinogenesis. Dr. Pardoll discovered one of the two ligands for the PD-1 inhibitory receptor and leads the Hopkins cancer immunology program that developed PD-1 pathway-targeted antibodies, demonstrating their clinical activity in multiple cancer types.