What the HEK is Immunotherapy?
Episodes
14: What the HEK is autoimmunity? How can immunotherapy help?
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
So we have talked a lot about immunotherapy for cancer - but its also used to treat autoimmune diseases! In this episode we talk with Dr. Marc Horwitz...
13: What the HEK is patient engagement in research?
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patients are the centre of why we do what we do in immunotherapy research - so shouldn’t they have a say?? Well that's where patient engagement ...
12: What the HEK are clinical trials? (from a scientist's perspective)
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You've heard of clinical trials - but how do they actually work? We get into the nitty gritty of clinical trials in part 1 of our miniseries on cl...
11: What the HEK are cancer vaccines?
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vaccines not only prevent infectious diseases - they can also help cure cancer! To learn how this works and all about the field of cancer vaccines we ...
10: What the HEK is perioperative immunotherapy?
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How can we improve outcomes for cancer patients undergoing surgery? With Immunotherapy! In this episode we discuss perioperative immunotherapy with Dr...
09: What the HEK is new in immunotherapy? (2024 recap)
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
To end off the year Grace and Gillian dive into some of the scientific findings and news they found most interesting in the immunotherapy field for 20...
BONUS: How the HEK do we care for research animals?
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So you may have heard us talk about animal work in this podcast - specifically working with mice. But we wanted to dive a little deeper into what that...
08: What the HEK are you studying? (about OVs)
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, Dr. Lee-Hwa Tai taught us about what oncolytic viruses or "OVs" are. So naturally we followed up with a trainee to learn about some cool r...
07: What the HEK are oncolytic viruses?
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wait, viruses as cancer therapy?? That's right! Oncolytic viruses or OVs are a newer and promising type of therapy that uses viruses to take down ...
06: What the HEK are viruses?
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some cool and emerging immunotherapies use viruses to kill cancer cells. But what the HEK are viruses and how do they work? In this week’s episode w...
05: What the HEK are you studying? (About TILs)
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last episode we learnt all about tumour infiltrating lymphocyte or TIL therapy through interviewing Dr. Simon Turcotte. We touched on his research, bu...
04: What the HEK is TIL therapy?
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month Gillian and Pauline learn all about Tumor infiltrating Lymphocyte (aka TIL) therapy with Dr. Simon Turcotte! Dr. Turcotte is a surgical onc...
03: What the HEK are you studying? (about CAR T cells)
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So we learnt all about CAR T cell therapy on episode 2 with Dr. Scott McComb, but what exactly is the current landscape of CAR T cell therapy research...
BONUS: What the HEK is the patient experience with immunotherapy?
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week we are doing something a bit different - Grace and I sit down with Danielle Eldridge to chat about her experience receiving immunotherapy. ...
02: What the HEK is CAR T cell therapy?
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this month’s episode we are joined by Dr. Scott McComb, a researcher at the National Research Council of Canada, to talk about Chimeric Antigen R...
What the HEK is immunotherapy? Trailer
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What the HEK is immunotherapy? With this podcast we are trying to answer that question! Through interviews with professors, students, patients, and ot...
01: What the HEK is immunology?
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Before we dive into the different types of immunotherapy we wanted to take a step back to actually give a primer on what the HEK is immunotherapy? In ...