Dr. Habib Fakhrai
President and CEO of NovaRx Corporation

New Approaches to Treat Cancer
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

A widespread belief among biomedical researchers today is that we all have pre-cancerous growths occurring within our bodies on a fairly regular basis. When this happens, our immune systems, if they are healthy and functioning properly, quickly recognize these cells as being abnormal and kill them before they can accumulate in sufficient quantities to constitute a threat to our overall health. However, sometimes the immune system can fail in this vital task, either because it has become defective in some way or because the aberrant cells have devised a way to shield themselves from detection.

Dr. Fakhrai is a renowned scientist in the field of cancer gene therapy. He was the first in the world to recognize the importance of blocking immunosuppression in cancer vaccine therapy. Using genetic engineering, Dr. Fakhrai has developed a genetic "switch," which can turn off the cell's ability to produce TGF-beta, an immunosuppressive protein that ‘hides’ tumors from the immune system. Prior to founding NovaRx, he was a Visiting Researcher and the Director of the Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine.