Wrestling Fan Puts a Choke Hold on Cancer With LVHN’s CAR-T Cell Therapy Treatment

Lower Nazareth Township resident Joe Killino likes to watch high school wrestling. For him, it’s satisfying to see athletes put their strength to the test. Just like determined athletes, the infection-fighting cells in Killino’s body have challenged his cancer cells in a life-or-death wrestling match.

He is one of the first Lehigh Valley Topper Cancer Institute patients to undergo CAR-T cell therapy, made possible by a generous donation from Tom and Karin Hall to the Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program at the Cancer Institute. CAR-T is a type of immunotherapy that works by strengthening a person’s own immune system to fight cancer more effectively.

Killino’s first abnormal blood test occurred in 2015. That’s when clinicians diagnosed him with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood. They treated him with chemotherapy and he experienced remission, but the disease returned as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Having exhausted the traditional treatment regimen, Killino and his wife, Sharon, were looking for a new solution.

After consulting with Usama Gergis, MD, Director of Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy and Professor of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, the couple became optimistic. Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) had been approved to offer an innovative treatment for blood and bone cancers called CAR-T. Killino was a candidate because his cancer had relapsed after chemotherapy.

The treatment involves adding a protein – chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR for short – to a person’s T cells. (T cells are the ones that fight off disease and infection.) Called CAR-T cells once you add the protein, they become a navigation system to track down and destroy cancer cells. “CAR-T is the latest and supposed to be the greatest, so I did a lot of research,” Killino says. “I also talked with my niece, who is a hematologist oncologist, and she was gung-ho.” 

If someone is deemed a candidate for CAR-T cell therapy, the patient undergoes testing including evaluation of lung, heart and organ function to make sure they are healthy. If they are, clinicians collect the patient’s T cells in a one-day, intravenous procedure.

“The T cells are then separated from the blood and sent to a lab where chimeric antigen receptor proteins are added,” says hematologist oncologist Zachary Wolfe, MD, with the Cancer Institute. “While the cells were being reengineered, Joe underwent chemotherapy treatment to keep the cancer under control. This is often the case, depending on how rapidly a patient’s cancer is progressing.”

The enhanced cells are multiplied in the lab, and then reinfused in the patient’s body in another intravenous procedure. The process for Killino began in December 2024 and finished in February 2025. He was more than pleased that he was able to undergo CAR-T therapy at LVHN. “Everyone made me feel right at home,” he says. “I’m so glad to be able to get it done and that it’s done here. Otherwise, I would have had to travel to Philadelphia.”

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As soon as the clinical staff at the Cancer Institute reinfused Killino’s reengineered cells back to him, he was ready to restart his life. “I want to spend time with my six granddaughters and do some traveling – to warmer locations,” he says. “I’m also excited to get back to the gym and watch more high school wrestling matches.”

A former wrestling coach, Killino says the sport is the ultimate entertainment for him, and now perhaps even more meaningful. “It’s that aspect of holding your opponent down and knowing you have won. That’s how I feel now about cancer.”