Chris Silver was diagnosed with melanoma in July 2016 when a couple of irregular skin bumps brought him into his doctor’s office. He underwent surgery to remove the bumps. When Chris woke up, his doctor informed him that he had melanoma and he had already made an appointment for him to see Dr. Beth Buchbinder, a melanoma specialist at Dana-Farber.Chris began treatment at Dana-Farber with a new class of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors or immunotherapy agents – a type of treatment that activate the body’s immune system to attack the cancer. Immunotherapy is helping many cancer patients, but especially those patients with melanoma, to achieve durable remissions that even 5 years ago were not possible. Much of the research that led to the development of these lifesaving drugs were done by scientists at Dana-Farber. In December, Chris' wife Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, Melissa’s cancer was caught early and today she is cancer free. Chris is doing well himself aside for some from some fatigue. Chris is back to work and when he’s not on the job or fighting cancer, he enjoys camping, kayaking, and hiking.

Dr. Buchbinder can talk about how Dana-Farber is leading the way in immunotherapy agents, called checkpoint inhibitors, which take the breaks off the body’s immune system so that it can recognize and fight the cancer. Immunotherapy is exactly the type of groundbreaking therapy that Dana-Farber works to advance, and which has produced dramatic remissions in patients that had previously untreatable disease.