Treating Melanoma with Immunotherapy

Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist who specializes in the treatment of melanoma at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and whose research focuses on the development of innovative ways to use the immune system to treat cancer. He has been at the forefront of cancer immunotherapy, as an active clinician scientist exploring immunotherapy and as a principal investigator in several pivotal clinical trials, including a large phase III trial that led to the FDA approval of ipilimumab, an antibody now used as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced melanoma. On June 18, 2013, Dr. Wolchok discussed current advances in cancer immunotherapy for melanoma and other cancers.

Dr. Wolchok is the director of Immunotherapy Clinical Trials, an associate attending physician in melanoma-sarcoma, is head of the Swim Across America Laboratory, and an associate director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City. He is also the associate chair of medicine and leads the Immunotherapeutics Clinical Core at MSKCC. In 2011, Dr. Wolchok was named Director of the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative (CVC), a joint initiative between the Cancer Research Institute and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. The CVC is an international academic clinical trials network dedicated to developing safe and effective therapeutic vaccines and other immunotherapies for cancer. The CVC has conducted nearly 50 early-phase clinical trials of different therapeutic cancer vaccines involving more than 950 patients with melanoma, lung, ovarian, prostate, breast, and other cancers.

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 made possible with generous support from Dendreon. For more information on this webinar, or to register for upcoming webinars, please visit www.cancerresearch.org/webinars.