When Lloyd Old began his research career in 1958 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, many of his pupils, like me, were yet to be born and tumor immunology was embryonic. With Baruj Benacerraf, he introduced Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), the tuberculosis vaccine, as a way to stimulate nonspecific resistance to tumor growth. Their results, published in Nature in 1959, showed that BCG conferred protection against tumors in experimental mouse models. The paper was one of the first to use the phrase “tumor immunity” in the scientific literature, and today it is considered a classic article in the early history of cancer immunology. Today, BCG is widely used as a first-line treatment for superficial bladder cancer.
The immune system's role in cancer control, development and escape is now a fundamental modern hallmark of cancer, and cancer immunology and immunotherapy are practiced avidly. With hindsight, it can now be appreciated that nearly every major advance, scientist and research program in the field of tumor immunology worldwide can trace its lineage back to Lloyd Old—to his discoveries; his mentorship; the translational research infrastructure he built as director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (1988–2005); the grant programs he established through the Cancer Research Institute (serving 40 years as its founding Director, 1971–2011); the joint venture he orchestrated in 2001 between those organizations to establish the Cancer Vaccine Collaborative; and the many other ways he worked so tirelessly to raise the credibility and visibility of the field worldwide. His scientific discoveries are seminal contributions that can be assigned to every one of the past six decades. They have, and will continue to have, a lasting effect on the fields of immunology and hematology, autoimmune inflammation, and cancer.
