1 Min Read The Origins of Cancer Immunology
July 24, 2026The Origins of Cancer Immunology
July 24, 2026
Care Framework & Diagram
Humanity's first attempt to kill cancer using the immune system was in 1891
A Doctor's Odd Observation
WILLIAM COLEY, 1891
Coley notices that some cancer patients' tumors shrink after a random bacterial infection. He starts deliberately injecting live bacteria into tumors, triggering fever — and some genuinely shrink. He treats over 1,000 patients this way, with some long-term remissions on record. But results are wildly inconsistent, nobody understands why it sometimes works, and by 1963 the FDA dismisses it as an 'unproven drug.'
What He Was Likely Doing All Along
THE MODERN INTERPRETATION
Looking back, Coley's bacteria were almost certainly triggering several real immune pathways at once — activating innate immune cells directly, causing a burst of tumor-killing inflammatory signal, and exposing the immune system to tumor material it could then learn to recognize. He simply had no way to control or even see any of it.
HELEN COLEY NAUTS — A DAUGHTER WHO SAVED THE RECORD
Coley's own daughter spent decades combing through her father's 1,000+ patient records, and in 1953 founded the Cancer Research Institute — which later helped fund the very scientists whose work would prove her father right.
Coley's own daughter spent decades combing through her father's 1,000+ patient records, and in 1953 founded the Cancer Research Institute — which later helped fund the very scientists whose work would prove her father right.
THE RETURN PATH
- 1976: BCG becomes the first FDA-approved tumor immunotherapy — still standard care for bladder cancer today.
- 2011: the first checkpoint inhibitor is approved — Coley's original intuition, finally given a precise molecular target.