Walt Keller, Leukemia
`Survivor, Has Passed
`
`He was featured in a 2013 Philadelphia magazine story about a radical new
`cancer treatment at Penn. He succumbed on Tuesday to complications from
`infection.
`by JASON FAGONE· 2/20/2014, 11:54 a.m.
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`Walter Robert Keller, 1953-2014
`
`In late 2011, I saw a story in the New York Times. A clinical trial of a new kind
`of cancer therapy at the University of Pennsylvania had jolted two elderly
`leukemia patients into apparent remission. The therapy had never been tried
`before in humans, only in mice. Developed over 25 years by a team of Penn
`doctors, it used genetic techniques to give new powers to a patient’s own cells,
`transforming them into “serial killers” able to attack and eliminate tumor.
`
`It seemed to be one of those rare moments in cancer science when an
`experimental treatment actually worked. I wanted to know more, so I asked
`Penn if they’d connect me with a patient. They pointed me to Walter Keller, a
`cabinet refinisher in Southern California, the seventh adult to ever receive the
`therapy.
`
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`Miltenyi v. UPenn
`IPR2022-00853
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`PLEASE JOIN US IN
`
`CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF
`
`WALTER ROBERT KELLER
`
`FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2014
`2:00pm
`
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`Walter Robert Keller’s memorial service announcement, courtesy of Keller’s sister Nancy Nelson.
`
`In October 2012, I flew to California to visit him. He met me at the airport
`with a big grin. He was tall and wiry, with leathery skin, green eyes, and short
`spiky hair. We went to lunch at an Italian restaurant and he started telling me
`about the trial. He said that when he first signed up to receive the treatment,
`he knew he was almost out of time. He’d been battling chronic lymphocytic
`leukemia, the most common form of leukemia, for 14 years, and chemo wasn’t
`working anymore. His body contained up to seven pounds of tumor. He
`required constant transfusions of blood products to stay alive. His California
`oncologist was telling him to put his affairs in order. He saw the trial as his
`last chance.
`
`The treatment, which had begun in May 2012 in Philadelphia, wasn’t easy for
`Walt. The way the therapy works, it uses the body as a sort of bioreactor to
`grow armies of cells that attack the tumors with great violence. There are
`temporary side effects. Because Walt was one of the earliest patients, doctors
`didn’t know as much as they do now about how to manage the side effects.
`
`About a week after he received his first treatment, he became very sick. He
`spiked a fever, shook with powerful chills known as “the rigors,” and began to
`babble about Elvis. Delusional, he kept trying to escape his hospital room. His
`kidneys started to shut down. There were times when his family thought he
`might die. (His eldest sister, Nancy Nelson, was there by his side, having left
`her job and her family in California for 11 weeks to support Walt through the
`trial. Also present were Walt’s three adult children: his daughters, Chelle and
`Shawna, and his son, Dustin.)
`
`But with the help of Penn’s doctors and nurses, and the backing of his loved
`ones, Walt pulled through. The fever went down, the chills disappeared. He
`regained his senses. And incredibly, just shy of a month after his first
`treatment, when doctors took a biopsy of his bone marrow and analyzed it
`using their most sophisticated tools, they couldn’t find any evidence of cancer.
`He had entered the hospital a dying man, and he would leave it in remission.
`“I give all the credit to doctors,” Walt told me, “and to God.”
`
`He said that while I was here in California, he wanted to show me some of the
`things he cared about, some of what made his life worth living. He had been
`coaching Pony League baseball for years, and he also liked to give free private
`lessons for his players in the batting cage he’d built in his backyard, complete
`with a pitching mound. My second morning with Walt, three of his players
`showed up at his house, boys named Michael and Joshua and Cody in white
`pants and hunter-green shirts. In the backyard, they took turns throwing
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`fastballs as Walt stood on his small lawn in the sun, wearing a black T-shirt,
`sunglasses, jeans, and white New Balances, marveling at his players’ smooth,
`nearly identical pitching motions. “You see how they all have the same
`mechanics?” he asked me. “That’s because they all come to my house.” He
`laughed. “It’s my way or the highway.”
`
`Walt was proud of his role in the Penn trial. He wanted to be the best patient
`and the best advocate for the science he could be. He said he hoped his
`journey would benefit other patients down the line. “Good things that happen
`spread,” he said. “And [the doctors] learn from each patient, and apply what
`they’ve learned to the next patient, so every person down the line, it gets easier
`and easier.” He thought the story of the trial might give hope to other people
`out there who were suffering. He asked me a couple of times, shyly, but with
`wide eyes, if he thought we could ever be on Oprah together. That was the kind
`of audience he wanted to reach.
`
`* * *
`
`Last July in Calfornia, after my story about Walt and the Penn doctors had
`gone to press, Walt went to get some cancerous skin lesions removed from his
`right inner thigh. He’d had problems before with lesions like this, and the
`procedures had gone smoothly. This time, though, when the doctor removed
`the lesions, the wound became infected, and the infection spread to his blood.
`Walt was hospitalized in August with septic shock.
`
`Over the next several months, he spent time at four different hospitals,
`battling infection and wounds from the infection. The wounds spread from his
`waist all the way up to his shoulder. He was reluctant to go home and begin
`hospice care, because to him, hospice care meant he was going to die. He
`wanted to keep fighting; he wanted to see his four grandchildren grow up. But
`the pain became too much to bear, and earlier this month, he went home. Last
`Tuesday, in the early morning hours, when it seemed like he was worsening,
`his family gathered around.
`
`“Everybody told him they loved him,” Nancy said, “and he fought a good fight,
`and they were proud of him, but it was time for him to go.” He died on
`Tuesday, surrounded by loved ones. He leaves behind his wife, Robin; his
`three children; his siblings, Nancy, Judi Lauer, Kurt, Steve, and Jon Keller;
`and the grandchildren.
`
`The therapy developed by Penn doesn’t only destroy cancerous cells. It also
`eliminates certain normal cells that help the body fight infection. (Some of
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`that function can be restored with injections of blood plasma proteins.) I
`asked Penn if there was any link between Walt’s final illness and the trial. Dr.
`David Porter, the oncologist who cared for him during the trial, responded via
`email: “At the time of his passing last week, Walt’s leukemia had been in
`remission for more than 18 months following the therapy he received as part
`of this clinical trial. At this point, we aren’t able to determine whether there
`was any connection between the illness that led to his death and the trial
`protocol.”
`
`About 30 adults and 20 children with leukemia have received the therapy
`since Walt was first treated, and the outcomes have been dramatic and
`promising. In December, the Penn team presented results from all 59 patients
`so far. Forty-seven percent of adult patients with chronic lymphocytic
`leukemia experienced at least a partial response to the therapy, and seven
`patients went into complete remission. Also, 86 percent of children with a
`related disease, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, had complete remissions. Some
`later relapsed, but out of the first three adult patients treated in the summer of
`2010, two are still in remission more than three years later, and the first child
`is in also remission after almost two years.
`
`According to Nancy, Walt remained proud of his involvement in the trial until
`the very end, and grateful that it had extended his life. “He got a year and a
`half that he wouldn’t have had otherwise,” she said. Walt even tried to give one
`last blood sample for the trial in his final hours, although it didn’t work; he
`was too sick.
`
`David Porter called Walt “one of the strongest, bravest and kindest people I
`have encountered in all my years as an oncologist…. It is because of people like
`him that we can continue to hope and make progress against cancer, and I,
`and everyone in our group, will miss him.”
`
`I only knew Walt enough to realize it was a privilege to help tell his story. He
`was a good person who made a difference. His bravery may help extend many
`lives. Rest in peace.
`
`
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