Scientific Innovations Coming Out of Cuba

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you first. Everybody knows Cuba and the United States at loggerheads. Diplomacy has been disrupted. There are sanctions. It can barely pay for its daily bread. And yet, over the decades, it’s been really standout on the biomedical front. Why is that, do you think?

CANDACE JOHNSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ROSWELL PARK COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER: So, Cuba has really distinguished itself in some of the most preeminent immunologists. These individuals are some of the brightest and most innovative scientists that I have had the pleasure to work with. And they were — Cuba was sort of forced into this because they were — they didn’t have access to the drugs that you might get in Western countries. And so they developed the technologies to vaccinate their own people against a whole variety of things. We were obviously interested in their development of a lung cancer vaccine, but it is no surprise to me that they’re on the forefront of a COVID vaccine. They are — they’re truly remarkable people.

AMANPOUR: So, tell me. I mean, it sounds — everybody’s going to be picking up their ears at the sound of a lung — a cancer, a lung cancer vaccine.

JOHNSON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What exactly is it? Is it preventative? Is it therapeutic? And how have they been able to do it and how have you been able to get it?

JOHNSON: Yes, well, that’s the genius of the Cuban scientists. So, lung cancer, as we all know, it’s — there some new and novel approaches out that can increase someone’s survival, even in light stage disease. But lung cancer — most of the therapies, at least a number of years ago, were focused around this one growth factor receptor. And they didn’t have access to any of those drugs. And so they hypothesized, hmm, I wonder if we could immunize people against this particular growth factor. And this growth factor, the cancer cells, the lung cancer cells are addicted to this growth factor. And so, when the growth factor is present, the tumor grows. If you could prevent the president of that growth factor in the patient, perhaps the tumor would stop. And so this — the real genius of this is immunizing someone against a protein that’s natural to their body is no easy task. \ And that’s why — I’m sure that that’s why their COVID vaccine was so successful, because they developed a technology to take that growth factor and conjugate it to a very unique protein, and then immunize people against this growth factor. And, lo and behold, they demonstrated that patients had a very strong immune response, and developed — and actually depleted the levels of this growth factor in these lung cancer patients. No growth factor, the tumors don’t grow. It was genius. And they did studies in Cuba. They have done studies in South America. They actually have gone through phase three studies. These results were published actually in an American journal.