In this monologue Dr. Dino Prato, founder of Invita Medical Centers, argues that the primary obstacle in treating solid tumors is not the cancer cells themselves but the failure to harness the patient’s own immune system. He critiques conventional chemotherapy and the limited reach of PD‑1 inhibitors and CAR‑T therapies, emphasizing that a one‑size‑fits‑all approach neglects tumor heterogeneity. Prato promotes autologous adaptive immunotherapy—custom vaccines built from a patient’s natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells, and lymphocytes—engineered to recognize neoantigens and remodel the tumor microenvironment. He describes the process of extracting immune cells, expanding them, loading them with tumor‑derived antigens (damage‑associated molecular patterns, tumor fragments), and delivering them either systemically or in situ via a catheter to create a “hot” tumor that the immune system can eradicate. He highlights the importance of precise biomarker monitoring (circulating tumor DNA, methylation patterns, circulating tumor cells) and the integration of AI‑driven multi‑omics data (DNA, RNA, transcriptomics, spatial immune profiling) to personalize treatment and predict outcomes. Prato also notes industry barriers—financial incentives favoring chemotherapy over personalized immunotherapy—and calls for broader patient access to these targeted therapies. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to consult physicians, subscribe for more precision oncology content, and consider immunotherapy as the future of solid tumor treatment.
Chapters
What if I told you the real problem in most cancer treatment is not just killing the cancer cells, but it's the immune system? What if one of the most important breakthroughs to solid tumor treatment is your immune system? And it's not being offered to most patients outside of a PD-1 inhibitor. People aren't getting anything. The immune system is key to going after these tumors because your immune system can think unlike a drug. It can find, seek, kill, destroy those cancer cells and not attack healthy parts of your body. It's powerful. So custom immunotherapy and immunotherapy strategies is is the key to overcoming cancer in my clinical experience. And we're already seeing that because in our facilities, both here in our U.S. and international facility, we've been working on cancer cell vaccines, meaning using your body's own immune system to fight cancer. Natural killer cells, dendritic cells, LACS, lymphocyte-activated cytokines, and so forth, all to custom build treatments to help patients overcome cancer. And we do that in a very powerful way. But that's where the future is going to be. There's a lot of companies around the world working on different techniques to help people overcome cancer with immunity because it's not really about a one-size-fits-all. It's also not about what chemo are you going to do next. It's about your immune system exposing the tumor to neoantigens. I'm Dr. Dino Prato, founder of Invita Medical Centers, and over the last 25 years, my team and I have helped thousands of patients who failed the top cancer hospitals in the country. And one of the key ways we did that is immunotherapy, activating their natural killer cells, dendritic cells, lymphocytes, activated cytokine responses, and changing the game for our patients. That, I believe, is the future of oncology. Now, before you change anything, make sure you're working with a doctor, and let's get started. I believe that the key to cancer treatment is the immune system. Now, you don't have to take my word for it. Just see what drugs like PD-1 inhibitors and CAR T-cells and all these different drugs that have come out in the area of immunity have really changed the game in cancer. But one of the best ways to treat cancer, in my opinion, is using your own immune system to fight cancer. Autologous adaptive immunotherapy. This is such an important concept. That means we can take natural killer cells, dendritic cells, lymphocytes from your own body, teach them to attack your antigens, your tumor, and and now turn a cold tumor hot and basically kill cancer everywhere in the body. So by focusing on precision targeting and using the right markers and the right pathways, this is becoming more and more critical to better outcomes for patients. Because it's not just about running a scan or some basic diagnosis label you have— breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, whatever it might be— but it's the exact markers you need on the immunotherapy side. So outside your tumor, you have a gang that's blocking your immune system from attacking the tumor. It's blocking it. So how do open that up? How do we get the immune system to recognize that? Well, one of the key ways of doing that is called neoantigens. It's the new fingerprint. So think of your dendritic cell as a detective. It gets all the mug shots, it gets all the information, fingerprints, and passes that on to the natural killer cells. When you're able to do that effectively and your natural killer cells can identify the tumor and remove the tumor suppression around the tumor microenvironment, now cancer gets killed by your immune system, which is what it does normally. See, that's the key, because now it can't hide, and now you can pass that information to entire body. And any new cancer cells that want to pop up with that information, they get killed. And so now the immune evasion or suppression is gone, and the game of cancer changes. That's the important piece here. So the future is not just about a new chemotherapy, it's about this custom targeting. Now, Big Pharma is going to try to do it as they always do, with a vial. They can make 10,000 of them in, you know, 10 minutes and sell them all over the world out of a warehouse. But real good immunotherapy, in my clinical experience, involves both the art and science of growing cultures, expanding cells, targeting those cells, those new neoantigens, those dendritic cells, the damage-associated molecular patterns, tumor fragments, and moving those to your natural killer cells and T cells so that they can do the work. That's the critical part here, so that stops the cancer cell from hiding. And that's what patients need to know. And in my clinical opinion, that is the key to overcoming cancer for many patients. The problem is it's not being offered. So most of the time, if it's not a PD-1 inhibitor or commercial drug of some immunotherapy, you're not going to get the benefit. Now, even if you're on a PD-1 inhibitor— Optivo, Keytruda— they're only going to work long term for 10% of the patients, even if you're a candidate. So again, it's only part of the story. If we combine proper immunotherapy vaccines where we have the mug shots, the fingerprints, the priming, the natural killer cells know where to go, everything else works better. And that's where we get the stress off of the immune system and we attack the tumor. It doesn't let the tumor disguise itself anymore, lets your body find it and go after it. Because tools like dendritic cell vaccines and natural killer cell vaccines and all the different types that we build for patients, they all work together. They coordinate an attack, they talk to each other, they use cytokines in response, they mature themselves with the right markers like damage-associated molecular patterns, and the immune system now is no longer blind. It can do its work. That's the power that's missing. And we're not going to get that from CAR T-cell therapy. Some of you may have researched CAR Ts. CAR T-cell therapy works mainly in blood cancers, not that well in solid tumors. So this chimeric tumor change that they're trying do for the T cells, it's not that effective. We published a paper over a decade ago on the subject, and it is not the key to solid tumors because in, in many ways, solid tumors respond so much better to other types of custom vaccines that operate more like your body does naturally. And it'll go after the tumors, shrink them, kill them, remove them, reduce them in size. And that is why immunotherapy is so important. And that's why autologous adaptive immunotherapy, in my opinion, which is taken from your own immune cells, has incredible power to help patients respond. That's why I believe the immune system is the first last defense against cancer. And if you want durable responses, it's going to involve your immune system. There's a number of tools that help stimulate immunity in general, but this is giving your cells the actual information to decode the cancer at the level of neoantigens, tumor markers, damage-associated molecular patterns, and all of the tumor microenvironment around the tumor that's blocking it can be changed when you know what it is. Meaning if the tumor microenvironment is blocking your immune system, even if you build a strong immune system and you give it new information to go after the tumor, you still have to take those blockades out. That's what PD-1 inhibitor is, but that's only part of the story. There are many other blockades that patients have that can be removed, and we can do that by going straight to a tumor with the right information and a catheter the size of a hair, be in and out in 45 minutes, and change the tumor microenvironment, stimulate the release of those antigens, and at the same time deploy a custom-built cancer cell vaccine from your own immune system that can go in and kill the cancer. See, that is super powerful. You've created in situ vaccine at the tumor site and a systemic vaccine. The power of those two talking to each other, this is where you get some really beautiful outcomes for patients. Those that are good candidates based on their targets. So this is where care is so important, and this is how I believe we're going to see the end of solid tumors, better cancer treatment. Now, I think the reason why it takes a while for this to get to people is because of the cancer industrial complex. There's no money in this like there is in chemotherapy. We know each cancer is unique and has a heterogeneity, meaning two people with the same type and stage of cancers have totally different treatment, totally different immunotherapies, totally different chemotherapies. And until we build those for each person, we're leaving a lot on the table to bringing people better responses. So the key is using these treatments that are targeted for patients in my clinical experience, monitoring the patients to see they're improving, not waiting for imaging and tumor markers, but literally using methylation, CT-free DNA, circulating tumor cells, and you can predict the outcomes and monitor the patient, help them respond better to get their health back. See, this is all the game of immunity. That's where we're going to see the power of changing pretty much all solid tumors throughout the body, from brain to pancreatic to breast to prostate to lung, you name it. This is the big deal. This is the change that I believe will impact the world. And with the addition of datasets that we get from patients and algorithms that keep improving, the, the addition of artificial intelligence we use in our, even our own algorithms, all that data, it's so meaningful when it comes to immunotherapy strategies. It opens the door for an entirely different response. It's flexible to the patient. It's direct targeted to the tumor. Talk about real precision and personalization. You're custom building this for each person. And that sequence matters. It matters because that's where we get the guesswork out. We get the data in and we custom build, if you will, the drug the immunotherapy direct to the patient because we have all the DNA, the RNA, the transcriptomics, the immune spatial biology, the immune profiling. We know why the tumor is cold, we know the tumor microenvironment, and we know if the T cells are exhausted, and we can overcome that. And that's where a patient can have a better response, a better quality of life. So I hope this got you excited about the power of immunotherapy, cancer cell vaccines, where the future cure is coming from. In my experience— and we're already seeing a lot of that in our work, and it's just getting better and better every day, every year because of the technology and the innovations And people need access to it because it can make a big difference along their journey to healing. So hope you found this episode helpful. I know that 90% of you watching this haven't subscribed. Please subscribe to help us get the word out there on precision oncology to help patients respond better to care, have options so they're not stuck in the one-size-fits-all, like everybody's doing the same thing, but they get the targeted care that may help them. I hope you found this episode helpful, and may the Lord bless you on your journey to healing.
