Natalie Silver, MD, MS, FACS

Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a very dangerous type of cancer. Most people with this cancer only live a few months after doctors find it. The medicines we have now don’t work well. Sometimes the tumors get smaller at first, but the cancer almost always comes back. We need better ways to treat this disease.ATC is hard to treat because it tricks the body’s defense system. Our body has special cells that are supposed to fight cancer. But this cancer confuses some of these cells and stops them from attacking. When this happens, your body can’t fight back against the cancer. This study tests a brand-new way to treat cancer. Doctors take a small piece of each patient’s tumor and use it to make a special medicine just for that person. The medicine is packaged into tiny particles (called RNA-LPAs). These particles are designed to wake up the body’s defense system and teach it to find and attack the cancer. This treatment has never been tested on people with ATC before.In this early clinical test, patients will get the new treatment while doctors carefully check to make sure it’s safe. Doctors will collect blood and tumor samples to see if the body’s defense system is responding. This helps scientists learn if the treatment is working the way they hoped. If this works, it could help patients with ATC live longer. It might also help doctors treat other types of cancer that don’t respond to today’s medicines.