Episode 033 - Dr Saman Maleki - Is the future of oncology found in the microbiome?

Inside Matters

The following is a conversation with Dr Saman Maleki, associate professor at Western University with a special focus on oncology, immuno oncology, microbiology, and everything to do with the immune system and the microbiome.

Dr Maleki is a pioneer and a world leader in the field of sensitising tumours to immunotherapy through modulating the microbiome.

During this conversation, we talked about the state of the art associated with the microbiome and cancer. So if you're interested in how cancer impacts the microbiome and how the microbiome impacts cancer you should listen to this episode. We delved into what the latest evidence is for the use of FMT in making a particular type of cancer therapy called immunotherapy better for treating particular cancers.

We talked about the journey from doing the first trials to the area where they are now, which is raising funds to do much larger trials that should definitively prove that changing the microbiome can massively improve response rates to cancer therapies.

Even as someone who's got their finger on the pulse of this field, I left the conversation enthusiastic and excited about the potential in the future for developing efficient microbiome treatments to tackle cancer.

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:38 First interest in the microbiome

00:05:46 FMT for C-Diff patients

00:09:11 Using the immune system to treat cancer

00:19:03 Microbiome research for oncology

00:23:46 Journey from first study

00:27:30 Stimulating immune system with FMT

00:39:09 Chemotherapy, pancreatic cancer and the microbiome

00:48:29 Novel cell therapy and chemotherapy

00:49:02 Future of immunotherapy

00:52:32 Immune therapy response in cancer treatment

00:55:41 Antibiotics and cancer treatment