Biography
Dr. Scheinberg is Attending and Chief of the Leukemia Service at Memorial Hospital and Member and Head of the Hematopoietic Cancer Immunochemistry Laboratory at Sloan-Kettering Institute. His work is focused on the discovery of new cancer immunotherapies, such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines, and the testing of them in clinical trials in patients with cancer. Dr. Scheinberg holds an appointment in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Department of Medicine at Cornell Medical College and is an advisor to several charitable foundations and companies developing new strategies for treatment of patients with cancer. He is a former Scholar of the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust and a translational investigator of the Leukemia Society of America.
Dr. Scheinberg trained at the New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center in internal medicine and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in medical oncology, before joining the staff at Sloan-Kettering in 1987. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1983.
Abstract
Specific Immunotherapy of Cancer: Targeting Therapy Selectively to the Neoplastic Cell
Specific Immunotherapy of Cancer: Targeting Therapy Selectively to the Neoplastic Cell. The program proposes to harness the immune system to specifically kill cancer cells while sparing normal cells and tissues. Two strategies will be employed. In the first, monoclonal antibodies (proteins of the immune system that can target cancer cells) will be used to deliver highly potent radioactive particles directly to cancer cells to kill them. These particles, known as alpha particles, are extraordinarily powerful, yet travel such short distances that they do not damage normal cells and tissues in the vicinity of the cancer. The second approach aims to develop vaccines that will stimulate the patient's immune system to recognize abnormal cancer-causing proteins found exclusively in the cancer cells. The aim is to have the cells of the immune system selectively attack and kill those cancer cells that have these proteins while sparing normal cells. At the current time, this program is the only one worldwide to use these two strategies in people.