Seeking Solutions for Deadly Brain Tumors: Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy

When you’re attempting to do something that’s never been done before, you must use methods that have never been tried. That means bringing together the brightest minds in the field to collaborate on a new approach. Brain tumors are among the toughest-to-treat cancers in the world, with a tumor microenvironment that significantly hinders efforts to harness the immune system to fight off disease. To clear that hurdle, patients need leading researchers to work together to better understand brain cancer biology and to pioneer new therapies. PICI exists to build these kinds of collaborations, and we’re teaming up with Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy to unlock the benefits of immunotherapy and cell and gene therapy for patients who desperately need better options.

How It Works

The research program will combine cutting-edge technologies and cell therapy expertise to point the way toward new, more effective therapies for deadly brain cancers like glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The partnership is designed to identify new targets for the treatment of aggressive brain tumors with immunotherapy. By generating a deeper biological understanding of brain tumors than ever before, mapping tumors and their surrounding microenvironments and combining multiple different datasets from hundreds of patients, the program will show us the way forward.

This partnership will also leverage PICI’s Cancer Data and Evidence Library (CANDEL) platform, bringing powerful data analysis and state-of-the-science machine learning capabilities to bear on one of the toughest-to-treat tumor types – providing nationwide research teams with a critical tool. Access to this analytical platform is critical, as it will help ensure the harmonizing of research efforts and standardization of reporting methodologies, enabling teams across the country to work together more seamlessly than ever before.

Moving Forward

By connecting multiple research groups, standardizing reporting methodologies and ensuring all researchers have access to top analytical tools, PICI and Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy can make more progress together than we can apart. That progress will generate data that lays the groundwork for clinical trials that can test novel combination therapies for patients.

This work could also have major implications for the rest of the immuno-oncology field. The learnings that come from studying the toughest tumor types will have an impact on progress in other cancers, especially other solid tumors, where many of the challenges related to brain cancers also apply. By applying the learnings of this research more broadly, this research may directly benefit other patients in need of new therapies.