Steven Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D.: The development of cancer immunotherapy and its promise for treating advanced cancers

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, full stop, and we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen. If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more in-depth content if you wanna take your knowledge of the space to the next level. At the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are, or if you wanna learn more now, head over to peterattiamd.com forward slash subscribe. Now, without further delay, here's today's episode. The guest this week is Dr. Steve Rosenberg. Steve is the chief of the surgery branch of the National Cancer Institute, a position he has held continuously for the past 47 years. Some of you may have heard of me talk about Steve Rosenberg in the past. He is unquestionably the most important mentor I've ever had.
Steve has received numerous awards, in fact, really too many to name, so it's probably easier to explain it this way. He has received essentially every major award in science except for the Nobel Prize. He is one of the pioneers in the field of immunotherapy, dating back to his early work in the 1970s and 80s with the discovery of interleukin 2 and its effect on lymphocytes in mediating cancer regression in patients with metastatic cancer. In this episode, we talk about his entire history from childhood basically until now.
And it serves as effectively a roadmap for the field of immunotherapy from the very non-specific therapies such as interleukin 2 into the discovery of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes up into checkpoint inhibitors, which many people have heard of in the last decade, CAR T cells and adoptive cell therapy. We talk about all of these things in detail and perhaps most importantly, we talk about his optimism for what lies ahead, especially in the face of some of the more recent discoveries with respect to tumor antigenicity.
We also talk about the human side of cancer, which I think when you listen to this just completely comes through him in every way, shape or form. He has really never lost sight of why he chose to become a physician, basically at the age of six years old and why he was so drawn to cancer.
One other point I'll make, if you find this episode particularly interesting, I would highly recommend going back and reading the book The Transform Cell, which Steve wrote with John Berry about 30 years ago. It's one of the best books I've ever read on the process of scientific discovery and the journey and the ebbs and flows of failures and successes. It's really an amazing book for anyone who wants to understand how biomedical research is conducted. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Steve Rosenberg.
Dr. Rosenberg, thank you so much for making time. I know how busy you are. I know as much as anybody how busy you are because I've sat next to you and watched how hard you work and how tirelessly you work. So it really means a lot that you would make any amount of time to sit and talk about what we're gonna talk about today. I almost don't know where to begin, but I can't help but want to begin kind of chronologically with your life story because you're probably one of the most focused people I've ever met, if not the most focused person I've ever met. And that focus seems to have started at a very young age. Let's talk a little bit about your childhood. You grew up in the Bronx, if I'm not mistaken, correct?

**Steven Rosenberg** (3:47)
That's correct. I was born in the Bronx.

**Peter Attia** (3:50)
If I recall, we're coming up to your 81st birthday. So you were born, I think it's August 1st, 1940?

**Steven Rosenberg** (3:56)
August 1st, 1940

**Peter Attia** (4:01)
Yeah, so what are your earliest memories of childhood as they pertain both to your love of science and perhaps more importantly, your obsession with cancer?

**Steven Rosenberg** (4:10)
So up until about the age of five or six, I wanted to be a cowboy. I have an older brother and we would talk about going out west together and riding on horses and doing all kinds of exciting things. But the first things I remember, other than wanting to be a cowboy, occurred when I was about five or six years old. And I've given a lot of thought to how that came to pass.