About Immunotherapy

Outsmarting Cancer

Surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy have long been mainstays of cancer care, extending and improving lives. More than a decade ago, immunotherapy emerged as a fourth major arm of cancer therapy, awakening the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells. At the Parker Institute, we are leading the next phase of discovery to utilize immunotherapy more effectively, and bring that science to patients.

Immunotherapy now constitutes a wide spectrum of treatment options, and the impact of immunotherapy is reaching well beyond the early promise. For some patients, immunotherapy can prevent the risk of recurrence and produce lasting responses, even in cancers that have traditionally been difficult to treat. We believe that immunotherapy is the key to curing the more than 200 diseases we call cancer

How Immunotherapy Is Changing The Fight Against Cancer

Cancer is clever. It tricks your immune system into thinking it belongs. That it’s part of you. So your immune system stands down, and the cancer cells are free to grow and multiply.

But immunotherapy outsmarts cancer. It teaches the immune system to recognize cancer for what it is — a threat — so it can fight back and eliminate it. Not just once, but continuously. In the fight against cancer, immunotherapy is a true gamechanger.

Here’s how.

Precise

Immunotherapy is designed to target cancer cells with remarkable precision, minimizing damage to healthy tissue and reducing many of the side effects associated with traditional treatments.

Systemic

Because it activates the immune system, immunotherapy has the potential to find and fight cancer wherever it exists in the body — even when it has spread.

Adaptable

Cancer evolves in order to survive. Immunotherapy helps the immune system evolve with it, recognizing new threats and continuing to fight even as the disease changes.

Universal

By working through the immune system, immunotherapy has the potential to be effective across many different types of cancer, not just one.

Durable

For many patients, the fear of cancer returning never goes away. Immunotherapy can be designed to help by training immune cells to recognize and respond to cancer if it ever comes back.

Different Approaches. Same Goal.

Immunotherapy isn’t a single treatment. It’s a family of approaches, each designed to help the immune system recognize and eliminate cancer. These are the four broad categories being explored today.

The immune system has natural "off" switches that keep it from attacking healthy tissue — and cancer cells know how to exploit them. Checkpoint inhibitors block those signals, releasing the brakes and allowing immune cells to recognize and destroy tumors. These therapies have transformed outcomes for patients with melanoma, lung, kidney, bladder, and many other cancers, and remain one of the most widely used immunotherapy approaches today.

The Next Frontiers of Immunotherapy

A decade of discovery has brought us here. Since 2016, Parker scientists have helped define how immuno-oncology works, and in doing so, identified where it needs to go next. In 2026, we sharpened our focus on five priorities we believe hold the greatest potential to change how we treat cancer — and how we end it for good.