Transcription
I think what I want to do is get to the root cause so you can get a better outcome. So the idea is to cure cancer. Is there such a thing? You may ask? Well, I do believe so.
The cynicism is: "No, you can't. We are always going to die. There are always things that are killing us. Everything else is marketing."
How do you receive the criticism? Because if you just look at what are called universal truths, okay, one of the universal truths is this: the oldest person on the planet just passed away. The University of Barcelona did the entire analysis of blood, the tissue, and everything else. The only thing that we could find that was really positive was the protection of the immune system. If you had an active immune system. That's the key right there.
Remember the immune system's army of cells. Doctor Soon-Shiong says one soldier in particular, something called the natural killer cell, has the potential to change everything. You have in your body, God-given, a cell that kills cancer, that kills TB, that kills HIV, that kills COVID. This cell is called the natural killer cell. That is your body's first responder. We just haven't figured that out.
A healthy adult has around 2 billion natural killer cells in their blood. You can measure them with a blood test called the ALK, the absolute lymphocyte count. The doctor offered to test my. Let's see, I shoot them. I would think he had better veins and that. Already a bad sign.
He's long believed that this cell, properly functioning and activated, can kill cancer. The problem is most common treatments in use today. Chemotherapy, radiation. They might destroy cancer cells, but they come with a terrible cost. They also wipe out much of the immune system's army. What goes away? The actual cells that are probably helping to fight the fight that we need.
Everything we've been doing, inadvertently, is killing the natural killer cells as you try to treat you. Think about that logic. Everything from radiation to chemotherapy has been inducing the destruction of the natural killer cells. So if you go to what you call first principles, the only thing that you need to protect in your body is your natural killer cell. And if you protect that, that's what actually not only prevents cancer, but treats cancer and maybe kills cancer.
Building on these ideas, Soon-Shiong came up with an Activa, an immunotherapy drug he claims has the potential to target all forms of cancer. Activa. What does the drug do? In the "For Dummies" version: The natural killer cell all have on their surface a receptor that's looking for a protein that your body makes called IL-15, interleukin-15. Most important molecule is IL-15. And that is that IL-15. It is the switch that actually binds to the cell and activates and proliferates them and makes them supercharged.
In other words, when the natural killer cell is treated with IL-15, amazing things happen. The cell becomes stronger, more durable, and it multiplies faster, turning a normal soldier into the equivalent of the Incredible Hulk. Powerful enough to take on those cancer cells and kill them.
Take a look at this time-lapse video of a supercharged NK cell in action. So the green is a regular breast cell, correct? The red is a breast cancer cell. Correct. And the gray is the natural killer cells. So the natural killer cells have the capacity to identify cancer cells, infected cells, abnormal cells, and selectively kill it. The gray natural killer cells hunting it down on the left, identifying it as an abnormal cell and killing it from the outside. You look at an expert. Watch again closely. This is the potential game-changer. The first responder NK cell killing cancer right before your eyes.
If you give you a cell thing, even in healthy volunteers, it drives up your first responders. It drives them up and they protect us. And that's why I said the power is within us. We truly have a chance to change the paradigm. But it's a long road from the whiteboard to the lab to the cancer clinic where real patients get real results. To get there, you need to go through here, the FDA. And that's where this medical genius ran into a problem he couldn't solve.
You're a fix-it guy. I'm a fix-it. How come you haven't been able to fix your problems with the regulatory community, with patients' lives hanging in the balance, time and hope may be running out? I was truly devastated. I'm not sure if this change will happen. Stay with us.