TGen and City of Hope form alliance against cancer

Robert Stone is the president and CEO of City of Hope, which has been a cancer center for more than a century. City of Hope focuses mainly on blood cancers and bone marrow transplants, but also helps patients with solid tumors or diabetes. Their most significant innovations are in immunotherapy. Stone describes it as “teaching the immune system how to fight cancers.” When he first joined City of Hope 20 years ago, Stone says he never thought immunotherapy would play such a huge role in helping people with diseases. Stone has positive feelings about the relationship between his organization and TGen.

TGen President and Research Director Dr. Jeffrey Trent also looks forward to collaborating with City of Hope. Dr. Trent says that medical science has “witnessed a move of medicine from ‘one size fits all’” to a more “patient-tailored” form. TGen’s genome research reflects this shift. Since one cancer patient can have billions of pieces of genetic information to sort through, a person’s genetics ultimately determine how well any given treatment will work.

TGen, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, will combine its targeting of genetic information with City of Hope’s immunotherapy to “see cures we’ve never seen before.”