The March 2001 launch of Cancer Immunity arose from Dr. Lloyd Old’s desire to fulfill the pressing need for a responsive, up-to-date integrating repository for the advancing field of tumor immunology. Over the last decade, he relentlessly cultivated the journal so that it would become a high-quality scholarly vehicle accessible to everyone interested in immunological approaches to cancer.
To honor the late Dr. Old, we provide here in Cancer Immunity's online forum a space for his colleagues, collaborators, trainees, family, and friends to share their thoughts and feelings on not only his significant contributions to the field of cancer immunology, but his impact on their personal lives.
The members of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research New York Branch Laboratory of Human Cancer Immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center mourn the loss of their director, colleague and friend, Dr. Lloyd Old, who died on November 28, 2011, from prostate cancer.
While Dr. Old has held many important international academic and scientific leadership positions, he also directed until his death a highly active research laboratory. For six decades, this laboratory has been the stimulating environment and the outlet for his ingenious scientific creativity, resulting in numerous groundbreaking and seminal discoveries in basic immunology, cancer immunology, and cancer immunotherapy. Still, this was just a first step for him as he was constantly striving for the clinical application of these discoveries to serve his ultimate goal - the immunological control of human cancer. Dr. Old was the foremost proponent and practitioner of translational research before the term was even coined. His yardstick, for both basic and clinical discovery research, was nothing less than scientific excellence. Around this dictum, he formed his laboratory into the nucleus for the now flourishing field of human cancer immunology and immunotherapy. He trained and nurtured many world-renowned scientists and physicians from around the globe in his laboratory. Not few of these graduates from the “Lloyd Old International School of Human Cancer Immunology” in turn evolved into pioneers of cancer immunology in their home countries and institutions. He was well-known to cultivate life-long and committed scientific collaborations with his former students and maintain loyal friendships. Dr. Old was thinking in decades, not in months or years.
As an utmost and creative team builder and leader and with his laboratory as a core, he successfully brought together scientists and clinicians across institutions and continents, many of them former students, to jointly and constructively combat the ever-changing challenges of cancer. For Dr. Old, advances in the treatment of cancer were far too slow. Consequently, he constantly promoted novel and innovative ways for accelerating the clinical discovery process in order to find more efficient ways to develop an effective immunotherapy for human cancer.
Dr. Old’s laboratory was not only a place for research, but also an extended family to him. Just as he stayed dedicated to the same institutions for decades, he was also able to keep team members closely associated for unusually long times, some for a lifetime. He treasured to have the laboratory staffed in the most cosmopolitan way and he loved conversing with staff and visitors about history, philosophy, culture, arts, and music unique to their home country, quite often perplexing first-time visitors about the depths of these unexpected “non-scientific” discussions. He sincerely and genuinely cared about each member of his laboratory and he was a master in creating an atmosphere where everyone felt truly respected and appreciated, regardless of origin, ethnicity or position. Despite all scientific priorities, he always emphasized, “Family comes first.” This was not just a proverb to him, but he stood firmly behind it should the need arise by showing greatest and discreet support. At the same time, he himself remained a private person. When he was not physically in the laboratory, he typically stayed connected by phone as often as possible and calls at the odd hours of a day were not unheard of. Taking a vacation meant for him taking a break from his administrative duties and having all the time he wanted to spend and enjoy in his laboratory.
We will deeply miss Dr. Lloyd Old as our visionary scientific leader and guide, untiring teacher, and inspiring mentor. We will all continue to carry forward his work and vision—to find and creatively develop effective therapies for cancer.
The members of the Lloyd Old Laboratory of Human Cancer Immunology,
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, New York Branch at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Chris Fleming
MD/PhD Student, University of Louisville School of Medicine
Louisville, KT, USA
A great father of immunotherapy who will be sadly missed. We honor you everyday with our hardwork and persistent effort to find new and better cures. I know he's looking down happily as we continue on with his legacy.
Cassian Yee, M.D.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington
Seattle, WA, USA
I was one of the young faculty researchers many years ago who had only heard of Dr. Old’s work and his name through my mentor at the time, Phil Greenberg, and other prominent scientists who impressed upon me the honor of being invited to speak at the Cancer Research Institute. I met him for the first time at that meeting in 1998. He is and was the kindest, most thoughtful gentleman of science I have ever met who, in spite of my lowly position at the time, gave me his undivided attention during the busiest of times during that conference.
Since then, he has continued to be very supportive or our T cell therapy program and I cannot think of anyone whom I unfortunately knew so little of personally, yet who was so cognizant of our work, and who privately and publicly endorsed our efforts. Lloyd worked ‘behind the scenes’ in so many ways, without my knowledge to show his support at critical points in my career. Sometimes, I felt like there was an ‘angel’ scientist in Lloyd looking out for my best interests. Which is why his passing was a huge loss to me, to all those Lloyd knew at an individual level even though his responsibilities were far greater; and why he engendered a lasting loyalty and gratitude from myself to him and to the CRI.
Nicholas P. Restifo, M.D. National Cancer Institute
Bethesda, MD, USA
My first encounter with the idea of using the immune system to fight cancer was as a high school student in Lorain, Ohio, which lies at the nexus of the now defunct rust-belt industries that made steel and ships and cars. My grandfather, a shoemaker from Italy, knew that I liked science so he bought me a subscription for Scientific American for my 16th birthday. It seemed like a wildly generous gift at the time.
Everything in the pages of that magazine seemed to be a glimpse into a brighter future, something far better than the factory grime that seemed to literally cover everything back then.
But one article by a doctor from New York really struck me; so much that I saved that issue of Scientific American for decades. It was the May 1977 issue with an article by Lloyd Old that described how we might someday attack cancer cells with the immune system because they have ‘foreign labels.’
Ten years later as a young physician in the department of Surgery at MSKCC, I waited to meet Dr. Old face-to-face. After an hour of being stymied at the door by Charlotte Dobbs, his fierce protector and nurturer, I got to sit with Lloyd in his office and have a cup of tea. That was exciting. It was the first of several visits, and although he was optimistic, he cautioned me that in the field of cancer immunotherapy, I shouldn’t expect too much too soon.
When I recently re-read the 1977 article that inspired me, I noted that it ended with the thought that “ . . . neither uncritical optimism nor new waves of doubt and pessimism appear to be justified.” That still seems like perfectly sound advice and I offer it on his behalf to the youngest of our colleagues.
It seems fantastic to me that I was lucky enough to be excited years ago by what happens to be my exact area of interest right now. This week, I studied data from whole exome sequencing of cancer cells, and I felt one step closer to actually seeing what Lloyd was talking about 35 years ago. I could see for myself more vividly than ever what is ‘foreign’ about cancer.
