Tech on Drugs with Shai Shen-Orr TOD - 2025_04_17 - Nir Hacohen
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May 11, 2025 Nir Hacohen, the esteemed Director of the Center for Cancer Research at MGH and a pioneer in immunology, dives into captivating topics. He discusses the surge in antibody therapies and the challenges of STING agonists, urging caution before mechanistic understanding. Nir emphasizes the need for personalized cancer vaccines and reveals intriguing findings about a unique immune cell linked to sepsis. He showcases how spatial biology within tumors impacts therapeutic responses and the importance of tailoring treatments to individual patient profiles.
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Antibodies Changed Pharma's Landscape
- Antibodies transformed drug development by enabling fast, extracellular interventions that influence group cell decisions.
- Checkpoint blockade showed the immune system can eliminate cancer, overturning a century-long belief.
Mechanistic Gaps Sink Promising Targets
- STING agonists illustrate how targeting exciting pathways without deep mechanistic understanding can fail.
- Rushed crowding on new targets often leads to costly dead ends without sufficient molecular and cellular insight.
Probe Mechanism Before Racing
- Spend time probing what is known and unknown about a target before racing to development.
- Engage discovery scientists deeply to evaluate whether a program has a sound mechanistic foundation.