Probably all of us have random rogue cancer cells floating around in our bodies but by and large, in the majority of cases, our immune system circulates and acts as a surveillance mechanism and kills off those few tumor cells.

Once you close down your laboratory, you can't just rev it up again if you're able to finally get a grant.

The four most common cancers that account for about 80 percent of all cancer deaths are lung, breast, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer.

The decrease in incidents of death from cancer is largely attributable to new medicines or therapeutics. Perhaps a third is attributable to changing our environment, and that includes of course smoking which I believe accounted for probably 20 percent of deaths from, certainly from lung cancer, more than that from lung cancer, but from cancer overall.

Cancer vaccines are in the future. And they could be very effective. Checkpoint blockade, which is acting your immune system to recognize those cancer cells and kill them is another very promising approach and there have been some checkpoint blockade drugs out in the market now that will release the brake on T lymphocytes, the T lymphocyte is your major killer of tumor cells.

Cancer can no longer be classified according to the organ in which it arises. It has to be characterized in terms of the genetic mutation that exists.

When you think of the costs of cancer care, one can imagine that drugs like checkpoint blockers or transfer of these T lymphocytes are actually cost-saving, just as treatments for hepatitis C, while expensive, overall save money by preventing hepatitis and hep - hepatocarcinoma in patients.