Dr. Michael T. Lotze is Incoming Editor-in-Chief for the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC). As he transitions into his role with JITC, learn more about Dr. Lotze’s career, interest in JITC, and personal life.
Career
What inspired you to become a researcher?
Dr. Lotze: My earliest experiences in research were a disaster; I worked on a project at Northwestern University over the summer after my sophomore year on the rat testicular hexokinase and was so flummoxed (and out of money) that I went back to working as a scrub technician in the operating room. A year later, as a way to do my first international trip to Germany as a 19-year-old medical student, I found a laboratory willing to pay my way, my housing and a stipend to work on the biochemistry of bovine fibrinogen, assigned a critical task with a new piece of equipment (a fluorimeter, measuring peptide fragments) that didn’t work all summer. They found that a piece was missing after I returned to medical school in the fall! Luckily in my sophomore year, I fell in love with the new field of tumor immunology and T cells and read everything (which wasn’t much at the time) that I could put my hands on and committed to becoming a cancer clinician (surgeon) and a tumor immunologist. Which I did! I am fortunate to have had Ingegerd Hellstrom early in my career to encourage me in the field.
How has your career unfolded differently from what you envisioned as you were finishing medical school?
Dr. Lotze: My sense was that I would divide my time between the laboratory and the clinic, not realizing the extraordinary advances that one had to make choices, especially given the rapid advances in our science. I ultimately chose a path to obtain more resources for the laboratory and support my clinician colleagues! Interestingly, many of my closest colleagues have had to make such hard choices as well.
Looking at the I-O field over the course of your career, what has surprised you the most about the development of the field?
Dr. Lotze: After launching the first cell therapy with ‘lymphokine activated killer cells,’ my biggest early accomplishment was developing and creating the first natural product and then recombinant Interleukin 2 therapy at the NCI. Seeing the first patients have durable long-lived responses was thrilling and made me feel like a real doctor. The surprise was the long time it took to the next major advance with the development of immune checkpoint blockade, another 30 years! And I am not by nature a patient person, working through IL-4, IL-12, IL-18, DC, TIL, and autophagy inhibition!
What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career in cancer immunotherapy research?
Dr. Lotze: Find the best laboratory that is well funded with a clear connection to the clinic and the best investigator with a track record of accomplishment and fire in their belly.
Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
What interested you in the JITC Editor-in-Chief position?
Dr. Lotze: The Society and its Journal are now poised to deliver on the next 100 approvals. The opportunity in this role to have a bird’s-eye view on the field and working with accomplished and dedicated staff and volunteers from our membership sounded like the best way to give back to the field and have the great pleasure of advancing the next phase in our science and clinical development.
You have been transitioning as Incoming Editor-in-Chief over the last two months. What have you learned about JITC? What has surprised you about the journal during this process?
Dr. Lotze: Quite frankly, I have been surprised about the huge volume of manuscripts that come through our office and are then selected and published with a small and dedicated staff. I am gobsmacked at how good they are.
Personal Life
We hear you enjoy running marathons. How many have you done? Why do you enjoy running so much?
Dr. Lotze: I have done something like 106 full marathons (as well as many halves and ultramarathons). Given my busy travel schedule speaking and attending meetings, I enjoy running in new locales to see the city that I am in. Also, in my youth I smoked for several years, and this allows me to replace one addiction with another!
What is your most memorable marathon?
Dr. Lotze: My favorite one is New York given the crowds and the opportunity to run through all five boroughs. The most memorable was clearly doing the two-week trek in Nepal up to Namche Bazaar and then to Everest Base Camp, running downhill and starting in snow with poles and ending back in the capital of the Sherpas. Great food, great company, great vistas.
Are there any marathons or races you have not done that are on your bucket list?
Dr. Lotze: I would really like to do a marathon in Australia or New Zealand and perhaps another in South Africa. I have no interest in doing Antarctica!
What are some other hobbies you enjoy and why?
Dr. Lotze: I really enjoy cooking and trying new dishes from the weekend New York Times Magazine ‘Eat’ session, touring vineyards, and reading books, now largely historical and of course scientific. My latest has been to do books on tape while I run and am exploring neurobiology and the fascinating aspects of how the brain learns.
How many countries have you visited?
I really haven’t counted but of course Canada and Mexico in North America, Panama, Chile, and Brazil in South America, Kenya in Africa, China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and Singapore in Australasia and most of the European countries.
Outside out JITC, what do you most enjoy reading?
I subscribe to the New York Review of Books and have a hard time getting through the long essays before I go to sleep. My favorites are historical pieces but in my youth science fiction held sway.
Do you have any other fun anecdotes you would like to share?
My wife is also a physician (a rheumatologist) and we met in the emergency room over a cardiac arrest as trainees where she was my boss (some things never change!). She went on to become Dean of Students at our medical school (University of Pittsburgh) and our immunologic connections became more and more distant as our family grew. We spent our first year of marriage together in the National Health Care Service in rural Minnesota, 100 miles north of the twin cities, establishing four clinics over the course of a year, learning how to stay warm, canoeing in the Boundary Waters, wild-ricing, ice fishing, and learning how to develop pictures in black and white.