Stand Up To Cancer has awarded an $8 million grant to a top team of scientists to develop therapies that use a person’s immune cells to recognize and attack T-cell lymphoma.
Helen Heslop, of Baylor College of Medicine, will direct the team and Gianpietro Dotti, of University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will serve as co-leader of the grant.
The team is trying to find a way to develop CAR-T therapies covering the entire spectrum of T-cell lymphomas including an “off-the-shelf” basis so they will be available to more patients at lower cost. The team is also working to identify biomarkers that will help track the effectiveness of the therapy, and is evaluating a novel small molecule that shows encouraging activity in reducing the size of T-cell lymphomas.
The team is named in memory of Meg Vosburg, a lifelong learner, educator, and humanitarian, who died from T-cell lymphoma in 2018 at the age of 51. The SU2C Meg Vosburg T-Cell Lymphoma Dream Team will develop and study chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, which involve modifying a person’s immune cells to treat T-cell lymphoma.
The multi-institutional Dream Team includes six researchers from UNC Lineberger: Anne Beaven, investigator; Gianpietro Dotti, co-leader; Paul Eldridge, investigator; Natalie Grover, young investigator; Joel Parker, investigator; and Barbara Savoldo, investigator.
Patty Spears, who chairs the UNC Lineberger Patient Research Advocacy Group, was appointed as advocate. The team’s other members are from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
SU2C made the announcement at its 2019 Scientific Summit in Santa Monica, CA.
