Judy Keen, Ph.D.

It seems you can’t read the health section without finding a story about immunotherapy for cancer treatment. After 30+ years of research, immunotherapy is the latest successful cancer treatment. The success is remarkable. Immunotherapy is changing lives and providing options for a group of people who didn’t have options before. Immunotherapy treatment for cancer was the topic of the Institute of Medicine policy forum held this last week in Downtown... Read More

Companion papers were published in Science magazine this week that show the bacteria in the gut can influence the development of allergic responses. These papers are fascinating. Done in germ-free mice, these studies show that the microbiota that reside in your colon can influence the type of immune cells (specifically increasing the T regulatory cells and decreasing T helper 17 cells) that also live in that area. So, why does... Read More