Lee May was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, 14 years ago after experiencing bone pain and fatigue. Despite an initial prognosis of two to four years, he has survived well beyond expectations due to advances in cancer treatment.
May underwent several treatments at UCSF Health, including drug regimens, a stem cell transplant, and most recently CAR-T therapy. He credits his survival to ongoing research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Every time I relapsed, there would be a new course of therapy, a new drug would be available,” May said. “My survival relates directly to NIH (National Institutes of Health) research and funding. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t be here. Science moves forward with NIH funding.”
Jeffrey Wolf, M.D., May’s physician and a hematologist-oncologist at UCSF who specializes in blood and bone marrow cancers, has spent his career treating myeloma. Alongside Thomas Martin, M.D., Wolf established the UCSF Multiple Myeloma Program, which is the largest program of its kind in the western United States.
Wolf described progress against multiple myeloma as slow but significant: “For decades, I thought we would never make progress,” he said. “It took a long time to get a handle on this disease. But what we are doing now has grown out of all our laboratory and clinical work.”
After several rounds of traditional therapies that kept his cancer under control for limited periods, May received CAR-T therapy in 2023 using ciltacabtagene autoleucel—a treatment approved by the FDA in 2022 for adults whose multiple myeloma had returned or not responded to other treatments. This therapy involves modifying a patient’s immune cells so they can target cancer cells.
“This is really cutting-edge stuff,” May said about the single-infusion treatment he received at UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights. “The shot is one and done which is so wonderful. You can’t talk to a cancer patient who doesn’t want a break from treatment.”
At the June 2025 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, researchers reported that about one-third of patients treated with this one-shot CAR-T therapy were alive and progression-free five or more years later.
Wolf emphasized the significance of these developments: “It’s incredible that we are now able to cure diseases that we could never cure before,” he said. “This is the future: to cure cancer with a single shot. None of this could have been developed without NIH support all these years.”
Now 74 years old and living in Santa Cruz with his wife Shelley, May remains active leading a local support group for multiple myeloma patients and participating in outdoor activities such as hiking and cycling—even riding a stationary bike during hospital stays.
“I’m still here,” May said. “I feel very lucky. I never thought I’d live to see my kids get married or see my grandchildren. However long this lasts, I’ll take it.”
