Why Cancer Deaths Have Almost DOUBLED Since 1990 | Dr. Matt Halpert

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on the show we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be interviewing Dr. Matt Halpert. He's a leading expert on cutting-edge cancer immunotherapy. And of course, this is such an important topic today because we still see over the past 30 years cancer rates climbing. And I know this is a topic I'm very passionate about, as my mom has battled cancer twice. She battled cancer using conventional treatments and then natural treatments, and today she's in her 70s and doing well, uh, being a cancer survivor. And today I'm very interested in learning more about how can we fight cancer without chemo, without radiation, using more advanced cutting-edge therapies. And Dr. Matt Halper is an expert in these things. He's the CEO and founder of ImmunoCine Cancer Center, a company that provides personalized treatments, uh, for cancer patients. And again, we're going to talk today about why more people are dying from cancer today, even with all the research we're putting into it. We'll also talk about if chemotherapy and radiation should really be the first steps in approaching cancer, and we'll talk about more cutting-edge, generally holistic treatments in order to fight cancer. Dr. Matt, welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. I look forward to speaking with you and your audience today.

Well, yeah. So, so again, you know, I think this is going to be a great conversation talking about cancer. It's something that affects nearly everybody because so many people are diagnosed with cancer sometime in their lifetime. And if it's not them, someone they know, a friend, a family member. So many people are diagnosed with cancer. In fact, in 2019, around 10 million people alone died from cancer. And I believe it's still the second leading killer in the United States per year. What's crazy is since 19— if we go back less than 30 years, 29 years ago, that figure was less than 6 million. And so cancer rates have continued to climb. You know, there's a 75% increase between 1990 and 2019. So one of the first things that, you know, as a researcher, as a scientist, I'd love to ask you is, Why do you think we continue to see the numbers of people dying from cancer rise, even though we've poured trillions and trillions of dollars of research into, you know, studying cancer and cancer treatments?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And obviously there's a lot of underlying causes or events that can lead to a cancer diagnosis. A couple of these reasons. That we are seeing cancer rise so much, or at least I can hypothesize, is one of the things we have, especially on the Western side of the world, is our diets are largely— consist of junk and a lot of processed foods, a lot of chemicals, a lot of things we put in our bodies that we mistakenly believe are harmless. You know, I know for a lot of people in my family, they believe all the chemicals in diet sodas may cause no harm. And of course, the more we study that, the more we find out that that is actually leading to a lot of major disorders and inflammation and problems where your body is constantly at war with itself for what you're putting in there. And so that is just one reason is, is in the last 30 years, our diets have gone downhill. As a general population, which is one of the reasons one of the rises we're seeing, one of the subtypes of cancer is colorectal. This has been on the rise, especially in the younger population between the ages of 30 and 50. And if we look back as to what may have led to that, obviously you have a lot of, again, chemicals, processed foods and, you know, fast foods, things like that that we've started ingesting a lot more since the '90s. So that's, that's at least one reason, certainly not the only reason, but that's something that we've noticed. From our perspective as we study that.

Now, when you look at the research, Dr. Matt, is there anything specifically in the food? Is it sugar? Is it seed oils? Is it pesticides? What are some of those things in the food we eat that are specifically linked to cancer?

Well, yeah, I want to be careful how I answer this because I can't say any one thing has been conclusively linked to cancer, but You know, we've gone to such lengths to try and come up with, for example, sugar alternatives. And while it's not great to ingest a lot of sugar, that itself can lead to issues. At the very least, sugar is a natural product that our bodies can handle within moderation. Whereas when you come with these replacements, these literally, these are chemicals being synthesized in a lab that have really no business in your body. What I, what I like to say is if you look at the ingredients of something you're about to eat and you can't even read half of those ingredients, that probably should be a red flag. I mean, what are you eating? We really need to get back to— and I realize this is not necessarily related to Immunocene or what I do, but we need to get back to eating real food, food that has not been completely bastardized by processing in factories, basically for the sake of preservation and bottom lines.

Yeah, I, I absolutely agree. I think that, you know, when you— when we look at our standard diet today, I think that while maybe there's not a single food linked to cancer, I think that we see that there are foods that are linked to inflammation. There are foods that are linked to, um, you know, activate— you know, causing an immune system reaction. And so of course sugar is one of those things, and of course seed oils cause inflammation, and a lot of these additives that that we're seeing today that aren't food at all. They're, as you're saying, these are chemicals made in a lab. You know, I started off talking a little bit about—

I didn't mean to interrupt, but you combine that with our lazy lifestyle. We've become increasingly lazy. We sit, we sit so much. We sit at an office, we sit at our computers, we're, you know, whether it's social media or binging on TV, but we sit and we sit and we sit. And what people don't realize is Extensive sitting is one of the major causes of chronic inflammation. We were not meant to just sit in a static position for so long. You need to get up, you need to move, you need to exercise. And these are things we've probably heard our whole lives, right? Drink water, eat healthy, exercise. But there's a reason, you know, it might seem basic, but there is— there are fundamental reasons that you need to get up and move. Your lymphatic system that protects you, your immune system that protects you does not have a pump. It is not your circulatory system. The heart does not move your lymphatics around. It's muscle contraction that does it. You actually have to get up and walk or run or exercise to move your protective surveillance system around your body to clean out inflammation, to clean out the messes. And if you spend a majority of your day just sitting, even if it— you're doing what would be— even if you're working, even if it's not a bad thing, but you're, you know, you're, you're at work and you just happen to have a job where you sit a lot, that leads to extra inflammation. And as you were just alluding to, when your body is constantly under attack and chronically inflamed, you have increased opportunity for mutations, mistakes, and things that can lead to this, uh-oh, problem where one cell becomes two. And instead of stopping like it should, now 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, 8 becomes 16, and so on until someone tells you, we see a tumor, we have a problem. And so this is just— it's, it's sort of simplistic, but it's also critically— it is vital to how we need to get back to just being healthy specimens.

Yeah. Well, even to your point, there's some research that's come out the past few years on walking, and it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it being tied to longevity, you know. And I think that when we think about walking, as you mentioned, our lymphatic system, we need to pump it. And exercise or just, you know, movement helps do that. In Chinese medicine, when we take a look at this, it's, uh, they really believe cancer is due to what they call qi and blood stagnation. So basically things aren't moving through the body. That's really a key component there in that sort of ancient way of thinking. And so that's where even getting out and walking on a regular basis, uh, consuming foods that naturally quickly move through your system are, uh, like fruits and vegetables, uh, are, are really, really helpful. You know, I started off talking about this a little bit in terms of, um, you know, I still remember, uh, Dr. Matt, when my mom went through chemotherapy when I was a kid. I was about 13 years old, and I remember her throwing up in a bucket. I remember her taking a comb through her hair, all of it coming out, and these devastating effects of chemotherapy. And I remember thinking at the time, as a kid, a 13-year-old boy, I went into— I remember crying in a room after I saw my mom that sick. And I remember thinking thinking to myself, there's got to be a better way. That was one thing that really struck me. I said, there has to be a better way for someone to get healthy. And that really kind of set me on a path to studying, you know, herbs and foods and, and more holistic treatments for cancer. And so one of the questions I have for you is, why do you think— because I, you know, when I look at the research myself, I think there are— there is some evidence for a lot of other therapies that are promising for cancer, everything from turmeric and astragalus and other herbs to, you know, other, other, other treatments. Why do you think today chemotherapy and radiation is still sort of this the go-to or the dogmatic way of approaching cancer? And what are your thoughts on that starting to change? Because right now, to me, it still seems like that is the only solution.

Yeah, no, it's, it's certainly the, uh, the, the elephant in the room. Um, so I can give a little background on, on how this came about and why this, uh, still exists this way. So, uh, as we started to understand a little bit more about cancer in the late 1800s and early 1900s, so we're going back, you know, quite a while, over a century, um, there were a couple of things. So the very first chemotherapy created was actually a derivative of mustard gas, which I think everyone is aware is poison. Um, and the concept is a cancer is rapidly growing, it's growing faster than your healthy cells. And if we put a, a poison in our body, something that's gonna prevent cells from proliferating, the hope is that that will do more damage to the cancer, which wants to grow fast, compared to your healthy cells. But obviously it's all going to be affected, which is why your hair starts to fall out and you become so sickly. It is, it is literally poison. It is designed to stop all cells from proliferating with the hope that it will have a more grandiose effect on the cancer than it does your healthy cells. At the same time, way back when we had, we did have some doctors, Dr. William Coley is, you know, did phenomenal things in the 1890s. Now we've come a long way since then, but we also saw evidences of the immune system being able to fight back or eradicate cancer. But at that time, here's the thing, we knew very little about how the immune system works. It was very hard to explain how is this working? How is this fighting back against cancer? And at the time, the answer was question mark, question mark, question mark, a bunch of black boxes. Whereas with the chemotherapy and radiation, it's actually very obvious what it's doing. It's— it is easier to explain. It's poison and you're hoping to kill the cancer cells. And so as a result of just simplistic understanding, you know, 130 years ago, chemotherapy and radiation became the standard approach for treating cancer. Okay. You know, it definitely can buy time. There can be positive effects. I mean, we've seen that. We have seen that people do go through chemo and come out the other side. It is possible, but it's never a great process. It certainly doesn't take into account quality of life or anything like that. And as we move forward, those things become entrenched. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist. That's not where I'm going with this. But it is true that as Big Pharma comes about, you do start having massive revenue streams and massive money pushing the advancement of chemotherapy and radiation. You have FDA approvals. When the FDA starts coming out, you have insurance coverage. There's a lot of money behind these approaches. On the flip side, we don't truly have an accurate picture or even the beginnings of a real accurate picture of the immune system until really the 1950s and '60s and '70s. It, it takes a while. Uh, and so our understanding of how our own bodies would protect and fight against cancer is just simply behind, uh, at least in the, the, uh, context of business. And so as we start studying that in the '70s, and I'm happy to go deeper into this, and we start discovering T cells and dendritic cells and the cells that actually are capable of identifying a cancer and fighting back, we just have further to go. Uh, all the meantime, of course, your standard approaches, such as your chemotherapies, are continuing to advance and just be you know, the leader in the clubhouse. And so that continues to be the standard of care. And when you ask about something that I'm actually already starting to derivate to immunotherapy, but when you ask about like turmeric or, you know, ashwagandha or some of these other supplements, an unfortunate reality is probably going to be money. How is anyone going to make money on turmeric. Who is going to do that? So if we want turmeric to be a, a insurance-covered, qualified treatment option for cancer, it is going to have to go through some sort of clinical trial process to statistically confirm its ability to do that. Those trials are going to cost millions of dollars. They are going to take years. There's very little way to get around that. So the question we have to ask is who's going to invest that time and money when on the backside, you're unlikely to recoup anything because it's gonna be very difficult to make money with a turmeric pill or supplement that anyone can buy. And so unfortunately, unfortunately, science and business are not coalescing so well right there to truly put maybe the best options forward. So that's, that is just a very real problem that no one has, has solved just yet.

It is. That is a real problem. It's incredibly unfortunate, but that is, you know, the model is, is not set up for that if your God is economic progress, right? I mean, that's, that's the, that's, that's part of the challenge there. You know, one of the things that you've been able to do, Dr. Matt, and I know I'd heard about you through Dr. Rafael Gonzalez, and Dr. Rafael runs Re-Health in Cancun, Mexico. I think it's the leading stem cell clinic in the entire world, in my opinion. I think they just are doing phenomenal things with treating, uh, you know, everything from from herniated discs and back pain to autoimmune disease and inflammatory bowel issues and just chronic pain. And so I love what they're doing there. You know, you have been able to, uh, really invest a big part of your career in studying natural ways. Uh, let me say natural, but also maybe that's not the right way to define them. I would say harnessing the body's own healing power, doing things that are more in alignment with the way that our bodies were created to work, not poisoning our bodies per se. Can you explain what cancer immunotherapy is and how it differs from these, you know, traditional cancer treatments we're talking about?

Sure. Absolutely. So as I said before, when a cancer is diagnosed, it's when one cell has become two, two becomes four, and so on and so on and so on until you, you know, you go in for a scan and they say, we see a mass. And I mean, this is what cancer is. It is disregulated proliferation of your own cells into a cluster, which we call a tumor. And then as those cells break away and start moving to other organs and other parts of your body, you now have a stage 4 situation where you have dysregulated growth all over your body causing problems. Who knows where? And this is obviously not, not great, but we are constantly dealing with what I might call microcancers. There are a variety of reasons that can lead to, you know, a mutation happens, that happens, and one cell is supposed to replicate to two and stop. And sometimes it does keep going. Our immune systems, the way we were designed, we have fail-safes, we have checks and balances. We are— the fact that you and I are sitting here today believing we are not riddled with cancer means our immune systems are doing their job. Our immune system is able to see that problem, those cells that are doing something wrong, and eliminate it. And it usually does it without us having any clue. So 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8. Our immune system step in, natural killer cells, killer T cells, dendritic cells, and they eliminate it. They get rid of it and you move on. Uh, this is the same thing. We're constantly walking around bombarded with bacteria and virus viruses, and normally we don't fall sick. Normally our bodies just do their job and eliminate it, and we move on. Sometimes the pathogens are a little more insidious, and that's when we do get sick. But you know what? Our bodies still normally do our— do the job. When you get the flu, you don't have the flu the rest of your life until you die. Normally our bodies can handle that. So in the event of cancer, it's not just that there's been a mutation, It's not just that there's that underlying cause. Clearly, there's an issue with our immune systems. Basically, the term is immune ignorance. Our immune systems have failed. They have not recognized that this is a threat that needs to be eliminated. It may see it, but it is not being activated. It is not being turned— it's just ignoring it. And so, so cancer immunotherapy is the, you know, the entire category is How do we get our own immune systems to just go back to doing their job? If we can just get them properly armed and educated, flip the switch, our bodies are capable of taking care of this problem. I mean, they are. I mean, and they've done it your whole life. Obviously, if you're further down the road, you might be a bit behind the 8-ball. I mean, there is a point where You know, it may be too late, uh, that, you know, that's just a reality of everything in life. But as an immunologist and an academic researcher, I cannot justify any reason you would not want to get your immune system, your actual, your literal best defense system, in the game doing its job fighting back against the cancer. Uh, to, to, I like to put a sports analogy on it because most people have heard of Michael Jordan, but I'm like, You have Michael Jordan on your team and you've got him sitting on the bench. Someone's going to have to explain to me why you wouldn't want to put that guy in the game. It doesn't guarantee a win, but you have significantly better odds with your best player actually activated and motivated and doing the right things. And so that's cancer immunotherapy in a nutshell. Now, from that, you have groups like us that are doing it physiologically or through, you know, natural pathways, the way the immune system is naturally supposed to work. And then you have more artificial hijacked means, uh, ways to overstimulate or misdirect the immune system to try and fight back. They're, they're all technically within the realm of cancer immunotherapy, but depending on your personal mantra on if you think it can be achieved naturally, or if you think you have to hijack it artificially, you do get split-offs there. But quite frankly, either pathway makes more common sense than the chemotherapy radiation paradigms, which are more blunt tool weapons just designed to kill as many cells as possible.

Yeah, yeah, I, I love the way that you explain that. You know, I think this is one of the things why I mentioned some of these herbs and mushrooms earlier. You know, when you look at medicinal mushrooms like reishi and maitake, um, even turkey tail, cordyceps, a lot of these, these are used in Asia for what you're talking about, boosting and strengthening that immune system. I talked about herbs like astragalus. Ginseng is another one. There are even herbs like ginger that are able to do some of what you're sharing. Now, what you're trying to do is do this even at a more— even at a stronger level. You know, walk us through immunotherapy. You mentioned a few of those cells that are critical. I know I've read up a lot on NK cells in the treatment of cancer and how you stimulate those, but what are some ways— talk to me specifically about some of these NK cells, T cells, and the dendritic cells. How are you in your, uh, in your— in, in what you're doing in your research and even the treatments, how are those activating or multiplying, uh, those cells?

Yep, absolutely. So, um, you've got two predominant killer effector cells that their primary job is to kill erroneous mutated cells, whether they be virally infected or whether they be mutated cancer cells. You need the same type of immune response. You need to get rid of them. Those, those cells are going to cause problems if not eliminated. Very often, again, virus or cancer can try to hide. I won't get too into the weeds as an immunologist, but there are certain things they can downregulate on the surface of the cell in an attempt to hide from the immune system. This is where your natural killer cells come into play. They are not necessarily going to be what we call antigen-specific. They're not necessarily going to be educated per se. What they tend to look for is cells trying to hide. So they will look at cells, and if they do not see certain markers on the surface, they assume that this cell is trying to hide for some nefarious reason and they eliminate it. So we absolutely want those natural killer cells in the game. Because it just does make it harder. It, it's amazing how our immune system works. It's amazing that we have an entire cell designed to kill erroneous cells that on the flip side of the coin, they're trying to hide. And so those cells become activated and wipe them out. On the other side of that, we have killer T cells, which are supposed to go after the cells that are not really hiding. They're, they haven't downregulated, that they haven't activated the natural killer cells. They're very openly expressing erroneous or mutated antigens. And this is where your killer T cells are going to come into play and kill the cells in actually very similar mechanisms. It's just what they identify is, is again, is it there or is it not? But we have both sides protected. The thing here is that these T cells, which are so critical to this, will not naturally identify the problem. They're not— that's not how our bodies work. They, they don't naturally identify it. And we don't want that because honestly, if that were to happen, we would be suffering from a lot more autoimmunity. We don't— this has to be regulated and there have to be checks and balances or we have other issues. So our T cells, which were discovered again in the, you know, really '60s and '70s, are our basis of understanding It's their job to kill these cancer cells. The question has been, how do we get them? How do we get those cells going? How do we get them properly activated? And the answer from a biological point of view was discovered in the early 1970s when we discovered dendritic cells. The dendritic cells, we like to say, is functioning as the general of the immune system army. Their job is not to actually go up to a mutated cell and kill it, but their job is to identify the threat, whatever the threat. They've got to identify it. They have to understand it. They have to digest it. They figure it out, and then they appropriately and optimally communicate to the rest of the immune system, including natural killer cells, including killer T cells, this is a threat, go kill it. In the event of— again, I like to use the flu. If you are sick with the flu, it's because your body worked correctly. Your dendritic cells identified it. They see this virus, they know it's a problem. They've now initiated this immune response which will eliminate the flu. Not 50%, not 60%, eliminate it. It's out of your body. It does its job. And so as we fast forward in the '80s and '90s, a lot of money, a lot of hype went into dendritic cell technology. If we are going to truly use physiological natural pathways of our immune system to fight cancer, it has to be through the dendritic cell. There is no other way. They are at the top of the hierarchical pyramid. And unfortunately, you know, if you rewind 30 years ago, science just was not where it is today. And all of those dendritic cell attempts largely failed. It's basically everyone is sitting in the vehicle saying, we know we're in the right vehicle. Does anyone have a key? And no, no one did. And so they all fail. Nothing worked. And this ultimately led money, grants, science, move on. Okay, we can't get them to work. What else can we do? And this led to, let's move downstream in the immune system. Let's find other ways we can hijack or innervate the immune system to function against cancer. And this leads to the creation checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T-cells, which are other forms of immunotherapy that do have a role, can be effective, but by nature are artificial. They're, they're definitely, you, you're not using dendritic cells and so they're not optimal or complete.

And so, so Matt, how have you been able to maybe find a solution here? You know, I know recently the FDA granted your dendritic cell treatment because you have a dendritic cell treatment that you've helped innovate. Uh, it's on a fast track right now, designed for certain types of tumors like glioblastoma. Uh, can you explain, uh, I guess what that treatment is and how you found a solution there to start, uh, getting the general to start doing its job better?

Yep, happy to. Uh, so this goes back to some discoveries. We— again, I'm an academic researcher at Texas Medical Center, you know, places like MD Anderson, Baylor College of Medicine, THI Methodist. I was at Baylor College of Medicine for about 10 years as a researcher. And this is what my group— this is the basis of our whole discovery, which we believe, and now others are coming on board, is critically important to— it is this missing piece. I mean, sometimes it's just dumb luck. You're in the right place at the right time. But this is the critical component that was missing with how to get dendritic cells in the game. And so This goes back to dogma was wrong. Dogma says dendritic cells do not know what the infection or what the problem is. They merely present it. And with that thinking in mind, people would try to use dendritic cells. Okay, let's get the generals in the game. And so you have a dendritic cell and they would take the threat, let's say it's cancer, and they would make cancer proteins or peptides or lysate, whatever. And they would throw it on the dendritic cells and say, okay, you know, figure it out and go make an immune response happen. And sure, the dendritic cells would eat some of that. They'd present a little bit of it to the rest of the immune system. The immune system, the immune cells would go fight and you'd get a response like that much. You'd get something, but it's underwhelming. Then people said, that's not really working. What if we put the cancer information like the DNA or the RNA in the cell? Okay. And then the information's in there. It presents it to the effector cells. The effector cells go and fight and you get a response like that. Okay. Still underwhelming. And then people said, okay, we need, we're, we need to add other stimuli. Let's add the flu. Let's add a virus. Let's add bacteria. Let's add Coley's toxins. Let's do something. And so they, they add this, they do this, they add some other stimulus. Same thing. Maybe instead of this, you get this because Maybe you did hit some of the right pathways. None of it's working. We're clearly missing signals because again, we know from experience, from knowledge, we know the immune system can do this. What are we missing? And I'll tell you right now, it's not— we're not missing adding the right virus or the right toxin. Your body has never needed a certain bacteria to go ahead and eliminate an erroneous cancer, you know, evolving in your body. The discovery is the way the dendritic cell works is you actually have to take that target information and you actually have to put it inside— it's going to sound simplistic, but inside and on the cell at the same time in the same pathway. And with that information on and in the same time, you get two— it's picture overlapping elevators. You get this moment where there's an overlap, and it can't be a little bit off. This won't work. It has to be identical. There is a massive complex inside the dendritic cell looking at this overlapping target information from outside in and inside out. And when they are exactly the same— and I am talking to the level of the amino acid— we have done meticulous studies on this. We have published on this. Our scientific peers have said, yes, this data is legitimate. The patent offices have said, yes, this is unique, no one's done this. The FDA has says, yes, you're the only guy, you're the only ones using dendritic cells this way. When it sees that overlapped information, everything changes. And again, that's anti-dogmatic because no one has thought dendritic cells have a clue what's actually inside. You know, why would they know? And so, you know, we're doing inside and on, and you're thinking, okay, maybe 1 plus 1 will equal— maybe it won't equal 2. Maybe it'll equal 3, maybe it'll equal 4, maybe we'll get some sort of additive effect. You know, it won't just be so simplistic. And when we do that, we see 1 1 9,450. It's off the chart. It's not about adding more. It's about we flipped a switch in the dendritic cell. The entire genetic signature of the dendritic cell changes at that moment because that is actually signal 1. That is what the dendritic cell needs to identify that target as something that needs to be eliminated. No one has done that before. No one's doing it now. And that is the big discovery we identified as immunologists and then had that collective moment where we realized this is it. We have to get this to the clinic. There is not a more important discovery regarding dendritic cell biology. This is what we've been missing.

Now, Dr. Matt, have you— has there been any clinical trials or any testing this sort of treatment on patients yet?

Yes, absolutely. So as we move through the scientific studies and mechanistic understanding and all the rigors that goes into just scientific exploration, we have— we know what we have to do for this to be accepted and widespread. We have to move through the regulatory process. And so our thinking as scientists— now I'm going to tell you Josh, the business people hate this. They think we picked the wrong thing. Yeah. But we thought as the scientist, people think incorrectly that dendritic cells won't work, that they just can't do it. So how are we going to overcome that? How are we going to reeducate people that dendritic cells can do it? And so in the context of the clinical trials, we thought, well, let's pick the toughest cancers we can think of. And if we move the needle there, With these double load— we call them double-loaded dendritic cells. Where do you think this won't work? Because I've told you nothing at the moment about what the target needs to be other than how it needs to be loaded into the dendritic cell. And again, in the lab, I mean, at this point I'll tell you, we've done hundreds of targets. It's the same every time. So our first trial ended up being glioblastoma. Not only glioblastoma, but almost every patient is unmethylated, which means they have an unmethylated MGMT promoter, which Though that makes up about 60% of the cases, is considered the more untreatable version of glioblastoma. Yeah. So basically can't really think of a more aggressive or fatal cancer. We took all comers. We did not exclude patients that were already even progressing or in such bad shape. Normally these are excluded from trials. We basically did the opposite of cherry picking. We made it harder on ourselves. Again, The business people look at us like we're nuts because we have made this hard on ourselves. And despite all that, what I can tell you is the trial is already— we've completed it. It is statistically significant. We have moved the needle. The FDA did grant us a fast-track designation based on the clinical results that this does look very exciting and encouraging. It's a very, in a sense, simplistic process. It's 3 shots of dendritic cells, your own dendritic cells loaded correctly. That's it. We didn't have any severe adverse events. No, no big problems. Um, we have not reached median survival as of today because too many of the patients are still alive. And so I can't tell you where the 50% mark is. We haven't reached it yet. What I can tell you is that quality of life scores are quite frankly off the charts. Um, The patients, these are not patients on their deathbed. These are patients living life. I wish I could predict the future. I can't. But what I can tell you is that if every patient fell down today, the trial is still a statistically significant improvement over how we currently treat glioblastoma.

Now, Dr. Mett, one of the things that I've been so impressed as I talked to Dr. Rafael and yourself is that some of these treatments, in a way, they're more personalized. Like oftentimes— by the way, I've had NK cells done once, and what they did was— and I know you know this, but for everyone listening— I've had stem cell done, um, I've also had NK cells. With NK cells, we drew my blood, we then took my own blood, took those NK cells, and I believe cultured them. We multiplied so I had more NK cells, and then that was injected back into my bloodstream. So I had more NK cells to go and kill off viruses and that are, you know, everything from Epstein-Barr to CMV to Lyme, of course, that's a bacteria, but, you know, killing some of those, those, those things within my own body. And so to me, that's a very personalized approach. We use my own cells and just essentially, you know, worked with them to whether it's make, make more of them or make them stronger, and then put those back in my body. How does this sort of treatment— is it similar in that, in that it is more personalized, um, in that way? Or explain a little bit more about how that treatment works for the person.

Yeah, the same thing. We do the same thing in the clinical trials as we do with our sister company, our compassionate use, uh, Immunocene in Cancún. But we take a patient— if you're the patient, we are going to take your own white blood cells, your own immune cells, to the lab, and we're going to differentiate them into your dendritic cells. So we have a collection of Josh's dendritic cells. We are also going to take a sample of your cancer. This is not off the shelf. It is not a drug. We need a sample of your cancer. Wow. We're going to take that cancer, we're going to break it down to its complete genetic component, which means we've got the information, everything the cancer is or could be. We're also going to create an isolated and purified protein library, everything that, that cancer is presenting, and we're going to use that information to double-load your dendritic cells. This is all happening, of course, in a a CGMP lab, you know, something that is basically FDA compliant and appropriate for something like this. We now have your double-loaded dendritic cells, which we are now going to use a technique of ultrasound guidance to re-inject those into near functional draining lymph nodes. That's another important component. Dendritic cells don't go— you shouldn't get dendritic cells IV. That's not where dendritic cells go. They actually don't traffic very well from your blood or from an intradermal injection. It's actually just kind of pure laziness to do it that way because we've known for 30 years that isn't where they go. And so we put them near your lymph nodes. They then finish the migration into the node where they will now accurately and completely communicate to your immune system, wake up, I've seen the target. I see it correctly. Now go fight.. And in the trials, I can tell you we've had 100% objective response rate. Every patient, when we do this, we accurately and correctly get their immune systems engaged in fighting. Immunocene is a little bit— it's not a trial, right? It's— we get a basket catch of cancers all over the place, but we're still at about a 94% objective response rate, which to put that into, you know, relative terms, checkpoint inhibitors, which are the leading, FDA-approved cancer immunotherapy are typically around a 12 to 20% objective response. And that those are an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all approach. Again, they have a role, not completely just knocking those down, but they certainly don't provide that education from the ground up as, as you can through AdendritXcel. So yes, highly personalized for any of your audience thinking this. Yes. Big Pharma is going to hate this. There's really not a lot of economy of scale because if I'm making your vaccine, that really doesn't help me make anyone else's. And so you do need a lot of labor, you do need a lot of lab space, you do need— you know, there's a lot that goes into it. But if it works, it works.

Well, Dr. Ryan, I mean, it's the same across the board. I mean, of course, in the cancer space, but all spaces, you know, I've spent all of my career really focusing on this personalized medicine that every single person actually needs a unique diet customized for them. Everyone has unique lifestyle challenges. Everyone has— even somebody that has hypothyroidism or diabetes, I mean, there, there are, there are things unique to them that we need to do in terms of the best vitamins, minerals, supplements, uh, foods that are going to be more medicinal for those people than others. And so that's what I love about your approach. I think all medicine should be personalized. And what's happened today, because it's like herding cattle It's like, hey, everyone is getting the exact same treatment and everybody is getting something that's maybe outdated by 100 years, you know, in, in a lot of cases. And so I love what you're doing and really going and using the person's own cells and, and, and then sort of, you know, educating them, getting back in the exact right area. And again, this sort of treatment, uh, again, it's of course, it's, it's more expensive, it's much more personalized, it takes more time and care. But as you're saying, at 12 to 20% rate versus a 94. I mean, there's a big, big difference there, uh, in terms of, um, the effectiveness. And I've seen that same thing in my clinical practice, both when I had my brick and mortar, even today that I have my online clinic. When we take care of people, it's all— it's really what I call PCM. It's personalized cellular medicine. And so I, I— anyways, I love what you're doing here.

No, thank you. I, I just— in a sense, it's a mathematical equation and simplistic when you boil it down, if you're a cancer patient, a stage 4 cancer patient, and no, we would love to treat more patients that are stage 1 and 2, but we typically get 3 and 4s. You have an amount of cancer in your body at that point, amount X. It's different for everyone, right? I mean, it could be 10 million cells, it could be 10 billion cells. It just, it, who knows? It's X and it is growing. It is growing at rate Y. Again, the aggressiveness of a cancer is very independent to the patient. So you have on one side of the equation X to the Y. Growing. And at some point it is going to, it is going to win. Yes, sometimes chemotherapy plays a role in reducing X or Y. There, there can be a role for that at a certain point. But on the other side of the equation is your immune killing power, your protection, your best defense. And if you have cancer growing, you're— that is a zero. I'm telling you right now, it's not on, it's not doing its job. That's what we're fixing. We fix that and we get it. Now again, it's rate Z. I, Josh, you and I are different people. I don't know how your immune system compares to mine. What I know is that if either of us have cancer, it's off. We're gonna turn that on. We're gonna fix that. Now at least it's a fight. Before that it wasn't, it was a slaughter. It was a lopsided massacre. Now you're in the game. Now you're fighting. Whether or not Z automatically overcomes X to the Y, I can't No one can guarantee that, you know, that's just beyond us. I'm, I'm not God. I don't have that control. But what I can tell you is if you want a shot at Z overcoming X to the Y, you better get it educated and activated and on, and you better do it the right way because that's the only way you're going to get all the signals needed. And so we've seen a variety of patients in different situations where absolutely Z overcomes X to the Y and they win. We have patients right now where their doctors are very upfront about go, yeah, my patient's disease-free. I told them it would never happen. Dr. Halpert, tell me what you all did. In fact, one of them wants to— Wow. —join clinical trials because they just don't believe it. If Z equals X to the Y, you might get a stable disease situation where it's maybe not shrinking, but it's not growing anymore. It's not spreading. And in that scenario, this is where we come into all those other things we can add. You want to add some turmeric or, you know, like, Now let's do some things. We can do things to now enhance Z. What if we make it Z squared? What if we can reduce X with something or reduce Y? Like, it's a, it's a fight now. We can do—

Dr. Matt, this has always been something that's really frustrated me, is when I look at, again, all forms of treatment— let's talk about cancer, but even diabetes— somebody goes into their doctor, they get prescribed or recommended chemotherapy or metformin, whatever it is. Why would you not put together a full-on protocol than just recommend a single pill or treatment? It's like, you know, let's give somebody their best chance. Why wouldn't we also have somebody with diabetes, you know, eliminate sugar from their diet and eat mostly protein, fiber, and just real foods and take cinnamon and chromium and fenugreek and magnesium and, and give their body the best chance possible? And it really happens. I know this goes back to one of your first statements. One of the issues today is the system is broken because it's so tied to monetary game alone. But that's one of the things, again, I love the idea right now of somebody doing a treatment like you're doing in conjunction with doing a lot of the stuff I teach, which is again perfecting your diet and reducing stress and getting out in the sunshine more and walking and doing these things. And so I, um, I, I love what you're doing, and I'm really hoping that this becomes the, you know, treatment protocol in the, in the future.

Yeah, I actually wrote an article. It's in Forbes at this point, but I want to be careful that I don't denigrate the FDA or the process. There's a— there is a reason we have to understand that if we don't have the FDA process in place, the reality is for every Dr. Josh Axe who's doing the research and giving legitimate advice, there's going to be people out there preying upon desperate patients. Yes, it's true. And yeah, that is just an unfortunate reality where where, you know, people will start selling magical water for $50,000 and just taking money. Yeah. But the— what's not caught up is how personalized and data-rich a patient or a person can be today. This didn't exist in the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s. It just didn't. And so the clinical trial model, the way we get things approved, like a drug for type 2 diabetes, is on a group metric. You know, you take 1,000 patients or whatever the number is and you look at an average. How do they respond to this? And then you make a blanket decision. Okay, based on that group average, this is the treatment. But who cares about an average? Every person is unique. The issue is that we don't have a model for that. We don't have a— I mean, yes, insurance companies should not be making decisions on treatments. I mean, it's insane, but they do. And they do it based on, again, group metrics, not the individual. And yet patients today can get genetic analysis of their cancer. They can get deep dives into who they are as a person. Maybe they have a specific mutation that requires this or that. Maybe they're very responsive to a certain supplement or mushroom or something. We're just not set up. To study things that way and approve treatments or provide treatments in that model. It doesn't exist. We only have this kind of outdated grouping where we just basically make a best-case, you know, assumption based on how a group did. And so you have a lot of people who are becoming a little more aware or wise. They listen to your show. They understand this. They understand I'm an individual. Why isn't anyone looking at my personal situation and recommending a treatment plan. And it's a model that actually, unfortunately, doesn't exist. And it's something that we at Immunocene are trying to do. And it is a bit of an uphill battle, as I'm sure you're aware, because we are— I will, I will fully state that we are doing it correctly and ethically and as, you know, with real science. But for every one of us, there might be 10 or 100 misinformation videos out there, or people who are just throwing who knows what. And, you know, you've got people watching stuff on YouTube or social media, and they just don't know what to believe. They don't know who to believe. Yeah. And it just kind of creates almost a mess where the FDA and mainstream doctors are aware of this, and so they feel it is in their safest interest— we just have to go with what is the group standard because it's hard to keep up with all the random ideas floating around out there and what's real and what isn't and what's actually going to help. And it's a bit of a mess.

And so, yeah, well, I, I think, I think there are far too many people that just create hype about things in headlines, everything from media outlets to, to YouTubers out there. So we're seeing that today. One of the things that I've always done in order to try and come to the truth is, is one, you know, there's this saying in the Bible, by your fruit you will recognize them. Who is somebody that's getting good results over and over and over again? And so that's something. And then I also think, thinking about, you know, what are principles that are, that are unchanging? And, and then for today, in relation to this, it's looking at, okay, what does the history of medicine say that's really not tied to monetary gain solely? Like traditional Chinese medicine, or Ayurveda, or biblical medicine, or Greek medicine. What are some of these things where where the practices have been done for maybe even thousands of years that have actually been effective and treating people. And then what does the science say today? And then where do they overlap? And what is the truth we're finding with these things together? I mean, turmeric's an example of this where that's been used for thousands of years in treating cellular issues, liver issues, on decreasing inflammation system-wide. And then there's a lot of research on active compounds like curcumin that have proven that. Okay, well, we know history has proven it to a degree. Science is now in alignment with that. So, so, so anyways, I, I love what you're doing. I want to encourage people to go to— you've got an amazing website where there's a lot of great content and information. It's called Immunocene. This is spelled— if anyone wants to look this up and you want to learn more about this natural cancer treatment, you can go to immunocene.com. That's I-M-M-U-N-O C-I-N-E. That's I-M-M-U-N-O-C-I-N-E, like immuno, and then Cine, C-I-N-E. And there's information on there about the treatment. There's an about section. There's information about the clinic. There's testimonials of people that have shared their experience. There's also a hub for if you're a physician and want to learn more. There's also applying for treatment. And so if you yourself want to learn more, or you know somebody who needs to know more about this, maybe they've had cancer or they have it or they want to learn more, then they can go to the site as well, again, immunoscene.com. Um, and if there's a part of this, uh, this show that really has stuck out to you, feel free to share it on social media. Again, I— we're grateful to everybody who shares this information because people need to know the truth. So many people are suffering from cancer today and they don't know that there's more personalized methods. They don't know the latest cutting-edge research in the natural ways to work with the body in healing. So thanks everybody for helping be on mission with myself and Dr. Halpert here on getting the word out there about Immunocene, about dendritic cells, natural killer cells, and working with the body in fighting cancer naturally. Anything else, Dr. Matt, that you want to say before, before we go today?

I thought, you know, I definitely thank you for having me on the show. I thank you for having this show. We honestly do need more of this, of what you're doing, of people that are doing this correctly. And, you know, I appreciate the vetting you've done on me. We tell our patients, we love educated patients, right? Do your due diligence. Don't just believe me because I said something. You should never do that. Do your own research. We're a huge fan because we know that the deeper you dive into this science, we're very confident you're going to come away very impressed because it is so legitimate. We are doing all the right things. Um, you mentioned earlier Dr. Gonzalez had this beautiful lab. That's the lab we're using. I require this be done in a top-notch lab, one of the top in the world, right? You can't do this in a closet. That's not how— I can't believe— I won't even tell you the clinic suggested you could just build this for us in our dirty closet. No. And it baffling some of the things I've seen out there and how sketchy they are, which is Immunocene was founded upon this core technology and the desire and requirement that this be done legally, ethically, transparently. You have to do it that way. And so, you know, I do talk a lot. I'm a scientist. So if you give me a platform, I'll just talk and talk. But we want questions. We want patients to understand what we're doing, why we're doing it. Ask everything. You know, you should never feel, you know, if a group is making you feel, you know, wrong for asking.

To your point, Matt, one of the most common things that happens with doctors today is they don't want you to ask questions. They want to just prescribe the, you know, the drug or just make the recommendation and you to just get out. And so you're— you've been the exact opposite end. You know, we want to educate you because we want to empower you to heal and to grow. And what we're doing makes sense and it's working. And so again, so, so grateful for what you're sharing here, uh, for everybody. I do want to mention for everybody again, immunocene.com. Also, you can follow Dr. Matt on Instagram. It's @matt_halpert. That's M-A-T-T-H-L-P-E-R-T. @matt_halpert_phd. @matt_halpert PhD. You can find him there on Instagram. And again, go to immunoscene.com to learn more about the incredible treatments and research they're doing. And again, I did really vet Dr. Halpert here. I looked in the research, read about it, uh, called Dr. Gonzalez, who again is amazing. And to mention the clinic, it is in Cancun, Mexico, because you're able to do more treatments there. And again, I, I've been in the clinic. The entire thing is white marble, glass, incredibly, incredibly nice. And so again, I've been there and had an NK cell and stem cell treatment there and had amazing results myself. Amazing. It's part of the reason I'm back walking, working out today is because of these amazing treatments. I want to encourage everybody to— again, thanks so much, everybody, for sharing, liking this video. Thanks for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember, every week we're diving deep into how to heal, how to grow in body, mind, spirit. Take your health and life to the next level. Again, thank you here to Dr. Matt Halpert, PhD, for sharing his wisdom today and the science behind how to activate dendritic cells to help fight cancer in a more natural way that aligns with our body without those side effects. Again, thanks everybody for subscribing, liking, sharing. I'll see you on the next episode.