Williams Cancer Institute

Chemotherapy kills cancer cells. It also kills the immune cells that kill cancer cells. Most of oncology has accepted that trade-off. @DrPatrick never did. He built Anktiva, an IL-15 agonist that activates and expands your NK cells and T cells without triggering the suppressive cells that protect tumors. Saudi Arabia just approved it for lung cancer. First country in the world to do so. I've been using IL-15 intratumorally in combination with other immunotherapy agents for years. What Dr. Soon-Shiong is doing at the systemic level, we're doing at the tumor level. The future of cancer treatment isn't about finding better poisons. It's about unlocking what's already inside you.

In this groundbreaking episode, Dr. Nathan Goodyear sits down with Dr. Jason Williams to reveal how the fusion of intratumoral ablation and immunotherapy is changing cancer care forever. From the power of precision medicine to the future role of AI and robotics in oncology, this conversation unpacks the science, strategy, and staggering success stories behind personalized tumor treatment.

In this groundbreaking episode, Dr. Nathan Goodyear sits down with Dr. Jason Williams to reveal how the fusion of intratumoral ablation and immunotherapy is changing cancer care forever. From the power of precision medicine to the future role of AI and robotics in oncology, this conversation unpacks the science, strategy, and staggering success stories behind personalized tumor treatment. youtube.com/watch?v=H_eNRb…

Cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to consume large amounts of glucose — a phenomenon known as the Warburg Effect. This metabolic shift helps tumors grow, survive, and shape their interaction with the immune system. If you want to understand one of the fundamental metabolic hallmarks of cancer, this article explains it in a clear and accessible way. Read more here: williamscancerinstitute.com/the-warburg-ef…

The FDA's approval framework was built for single-drug, single-indication trials. Cancer doesn't work that way. In our experience, effective intratumoral immunotherapy requires combinations of four, eight, sometimes twelve agents working together. Every one of those drugs is already FDA-approved individually. But the system has no pathway for approving them in combination at the doses and delivery methods that actually work. So we end up in a situation where the drugs exist, the science supports using them together, the clinical results are there, and patients still can't access the treatment because regulation hasn't caught up. Only about 5% of oncology drugs make it through the full approval process. Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of time. Meanwhile, patients are running out of both. The barrier at this point is not the science. It is the system.

At the Williams Cancer Institute, we focus on exploring innovative strategies that study how the immune system interacts with cancer and how the tumor microenvironment can influence treatment responses. Our goal is to better understand these mechanisms and support more personalized approaches to cancer care. Learn more about our approach here: williamscancerinstitute.com/why-choose-us/

Wishing Susie Wiles a full recovery. Early-stage breast cancer caught early has excellent outcomes, and the decision to act immediately is smart. One thing most patients aren't told is that the clock starts ticking the moment a biopsy is performed. A 2023 study in Cell Reports Medicine looked at over 176,000 early-stage breast cancer patients and found mortality risk rises significantly when treatment is delayed beyond 53 days after biopsy. The reason is biological. The biopsy creates a wound inside the tumor, and that wound environment becomes dominated by M2 macrophages that promote angiogenesis and help cancer cells gain the ability to spread. You've essentially disturbed a hornet's nest and then walked away. That same study showed that NSAIDs like ketorolac given at the time of biopsy can disrupt this process by blocking the COX-2/PGE2/EP2 loop that drives those pro-metastatic changes. A study in the British Journal of Anaesthesia found ketorolac or diclofenac at the time of breast cancer surgery reduced recurrence or metastasis risk by 6%. With 40,000 women dying from breast cancer each year in the US, that's a meaningful number of lives from something as simple as an anti-inflammatory. Something else worth considering is that early-stage breast cancer does not have to mean losing a breast. At Williams Cancer Institute, our breast cancer patients keep their breasts. Cryoablation and intratumoral immunotherapy treat the tumor directly, at the time of biopsy, while preserving the breast entirely. No mastectomy. No reconstruction with a foreign body that creates a new wound environment for cancer to exploit. The physical and emotional toll of losing a breast is real, and the stress response from major surgery suppresses the immune system for months. Keeping a woman whole matters for her healing in every sense. We can do better than the conventional sequence of biopsy, wait, surgery, wait, chemo, wait. The needle is already in the tumor. That's the moment to start.

Can a Tumor Become Its Own Vaccine?  What if cancer treatment could turn the tumor itself into a trigger for the immune system? Discover how a novel strategy combining tumor ablation and intratumoral immunotherapy aims to activate the body’s defenses against cancer. Watch the video and learn more about this innovative approach.

Cancer is the accumulation of aged cells. The standard treatment for it? Surgery, chemo, and radiation. All three create more aged cells. Two negatives do not make a positive here. They accelerate the negative. Senolytics like dasatinib and quercetin can destroy senescent cells. That's how our paradigm shift in cancer care can actually make you younger while we treat the disease.

Immunotherapy is transforming cancer care by reactivating the immune system to fight tumors. It can lead to long-lasting responses—but also requires careful monitoring for immune-related side effects to keep treatment safe and effective. williamscancerinstitute.com/immunotherapy-…

"Your food is either feeding cancer or fighting it. There is no neutral ground. And the compounds doing the fighting might already be in your kitchen. I wrote about this recently because I think it's one of the most underappreciated areas in cancer care. Polyphenols, the bioactive compounds found in fruits, vegetables, tea, herbs, and even red wine, are showing remarkable activity across multiple cancer pathways. We're talking about apoptosis, angiogenesis, metastasis, inflammation, and metabolic reprogramming. Not one target. Many targets, simultaneously. That matters, because cancer isn't a single-pathway disease. It's complex. And compounds like quercetin, EGCG from green tea, curcumin, sulforaphane from broccoli seed extract, fisetin from strawberries, and resveratrol don't just act as antioxidants. Some of them behave as pro-oxidants specifically in cancer cells, which already exist under higher oxidative stress than normal cells. That selective vulnerability is fascinating and could be a real advantage. At Williams Cancer Institute, we integrate many of these compounds into our protocols alongside immunotherapy. Curcumin has been shown to protect T cells from tumor-mediated destruction and may enhance the anti-cancer immune response by decreasing TGF-B, one of the most potent immune suppressors in the tumor microenvironment. EGCG can inhibit IDO, an enzyme that breaks down tryptophan, which immune cells need to function. Fisetin and quercetin act as senolytics, selectively clearing old, dysfunctional cells that accumulate with age and contribute to disease. Sulforaphane can suppress cancer stem cells and may help reduce MDSCs, the immune cells that protect tumors from being attacked. These aren't random supplements. Each one has a specific role in supporting the immune system's ability to recognize and fight cancer. But I want to be clear. These compounds are not cures by themselves. Anyone whose sole change to unhealthy habits is taking a handful of pills will be wasting their money. Diet is the most powerful therapy we have to employ in the fight against cancer. It's the beginning and the end of healing or disease potential. But it works as part of a broader strategy: movement, stress management, microbiome support, and purpose in your life. Without addressing the whole picture, supplements alone aren't going to do much. When you combine the right lifestyle with the right compounds and the right immunotherapy approach, you create an internal environment that favors healing over disease. And that's what we're working toward every day. Not waging a more brutal war on the body, but creating the conditions for the immune system to do what it was designed to do: protect you against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The future of oncology isn't choosing between conventional medicine and natural compounds. It's understanding how they work together, with your immune system at the center of it all.

@joeembedd Exactly. In select cases, approaches like PEF can target the tumor directly while engaging the immune system—promising options that are still becoming better known.

A Story of Courage and Hope We present the inspiring testimony of Erin Bacon, who faced a breast cancer diagnosis and chose to explore a different path in her treatment. Her story reflects determination, resilience, and the importance of being informed when making decisions about one’s health. If you would like to read more patient stories, visit:  #testimonials" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">williamscancerinstitute.com/why-choose-us/…

@noornaps Every case is unique. That’s why personalized treatment options matter—what works for one patient may not be the only path for another.

@WmsCInstitute doctors said she needed a mastectomy to survive, yet she’s cancer-free without it. Personalized options can make all the difference tho

Cancer grows by hijacking angiogenesis—the process of forming new blood vessels. By fueling tumors with oxygen and nutrients, angiogenesis enables growth and spread. Targeting these vessels has become a key strategy to slow cancer and improve treatment outcomes. williamscancerinstitute.com/angiogenesis-t…

Exploring new possibilities in cancer care.  Innovations in immunotherapy are helping researchers rethink how cancer may be treated in the future.

Cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to favor rapid sugar consumption and glycolysis (the Warburg effect), supporting fast growth, survival, and immune evasion. This metabolic weakness offers important opportunities for diagnosis and targeted therapies. williamscancerinstitute.com/the-warburg-ef…

Read more about this on our website williamscancerinstitute.com/more-than-a-gu…

Colorectal cancer in young adults has nearly doubled since the early 1990s. 3 out of 4 of these patients have no family history. We're seeing Stage III and IV in people under 40 with increasing aggressiveness. Why is this happening to this generation? The reason is it starts in the gut microbiome. Decades of processed food, antibiotic overuse, less breastfeeding, and environmental toxins have fundamentally changed our gut ecology compared to previous generations. Bacteria like E. coli producing colibactin directly damage intestinal DNA. Fusobacterium nucleatum suppresses antitumor immunity and chronic inflammation. The gut microbiome is the beating heart of the immune system. When it's compromised, everything downstream suffers.

We learned this lesson from HIV. When they used one drug at a time, patients got maybe a year. Switch to the next drug, another year. But when they combined three drugs together, everything changed. Now those patients are basically living normal lives. Cancer works the same way. One agent alone is highly unlikely to generate an effective anti-cancer immune response. Every cancer is different, every patient's immune environment is different, especially in something like pancreatic cancer where you're dealing with multiple KRAS mutations and variations. The strategy we're looking at is using targeted combinations to knock the cancer back, reduce the tumor burden, and then bring immunotherapy in behind it to let the immune system finish the job. Not chemotherapy. Targeted agents that don't destroy immune function. You reduce the cancer's hold, then educate the immune system to take over. The FDA has traditionally required single-drug approval, but cancer doesn't work that way. It takes the right combination in the right sequence. We're finally starting to see that shift.