On Sunday, October 20, 2024, on Yale Cancer Answers, Dr. Eric Winer interviewed Mark Mamula, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology). Dr. Mamula’s central research interests are in investigating the early events involved with breaking immune tolerance to self proteins, both in autoimmune disease and in tumor biology. He recently combined his love of dogs and his work in immunology to create a lifesaving
immunotherapy for canine cancer.
On this episode of Yale Cancer Answers, Dr. Mamula shares his research into immune tolerance in tumor biology and the development of a novel cancer vaccine for dogs.
“I’m an immunologist by training and immunotherapies have really changed the landscape of cancer care in humans, certainly in the last probably four or five years,” said Dr. Mamula. “Our interest in dog cancers arose a bit by serendipity. Dogs, just like humans, get spontaneous cancers. They arise naturally and they get virtually all of the same cancers that humans do, such as breast cancer. They get melanoma, colon cancer, osteosarcoma, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and they almost all have identical growth and mutations that human cancers have.”