Advances in cellular therapy “are becoming more-and more a part of our multi-disciplinary approach to treating cancer,” said Marcos de Lima, MD, the new leader of the Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy programs of the OSUCCC – James. In this episode, de Lima discusses the advances in blood and bone marrow transplants, and the next step: cellular therapy. This fairly new type of treatment falls under the bigger umbrella of immunotherapy, in which the power of the body’s immune system is harnessed to detect and kill cancer cells. According to de Lima, in cellular therapy, a subset of a patient’s blood cells are removed, genetically engineered “with instructions to kill cancer cells” and then re-injected into the patient. This technique, called chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR T-cell therapy, is already being used to treat blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. The next step is “solid tumors, such as lung cancer or liver cancer, and the potential is immense,” de Lima said. Curing cancer is personal for this James physician, who grew up in Brazil. Cancer took the lives of his father and brother when he was very young. “I believe that had something to do with my career choice, whether is was consciously or unconsciously,” de Lima said. “What’s most important is we can’t lose sight that this is all about giving people a better life and curing them.”