Reactivating Your Immune System to Fight Cancer

On May 28, 2014, Rolf Brekken, Ph.D., an associate professor in the departments of surgery and pharmacology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, provided information on how cancers evade the immune system and what treatments and combination of treatments, including bavituximab and other immune activators, can be used to counter tumor-induced immune suppression, helping your immune system fight cancer more effectively.

Dr. Brekken’s laboratory studies how therapy affects the tumor microenvironment and how stromal elements influence response to therapy. Dr. Brekken received his B.A. in Biology from Luther College and his Ph.D. from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he trained under Philip E. Thorpe, Ph.D. His graduate studies were focused on developing novel therapies that target the vascular compartment of tumors. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Vascular Biology at the Hope Heart Institute in Seattle, WA, where he studied how the extracellular matrix contributes to vascular function and tumor progression. He joined the Department of Surgery at UT Southwestern as faculty in 2002 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2009. He is also a member of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern.

This webinar is part of the Cancer Research Institute's webinar series, "Cancer Immunotherapy and You," which are offered free to the public and feature informative updates for patients and caregivers from leaders in cancer immunotherapy, followed by a Q&A. This webinar was generously supported by Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. For more information on this webinar, or to register for upcoming webinars, please visit www.cancerresearch.org/webinars.