Giving Compass' Take:

• Alyse Bernal recaps findings from research into T-call immunotherapy trials at Seattle Children's Hospital that show promising results. 

• How can funders help to advance scientific research in this area? How can donors support the spread of successful therapies? 

• Learn how to find and fund scientific research. 

Seattle Children’s doctors and researchers continue to believe chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy has the power to revolutionize pediatric cancer care.

Seattle Children’s recently enrolled its 200th immunotherapy patient, and now has nine T-cell therapy trials targeting childhood cancers from leukemia to solid tumors, which is one of the most robust pipelines in the country.

Of the six abstracts that will be presented at ASH, below are some of the key highlights.

1. Transplant improves remission following CD19 CAR T-cell therapy:
“We’ve seen excellent initial remission rates from our CD19 CAR T-cell therapy offered in our PLAT-02 trial, but about 50% of patients eventually relapse,” said Summers. “In working to prevent recurrence, we found HCT following T-cell therapy decreased the risk of relapse for patients who did not previously receive a HCT, or for patients who lost their T cells soon after remission.”

2. Boosting T cells increases persistence:
Dr. Colleen Annesley, an oncologist at Seattle Children’s and principal investigator for the PLAT-03trial, will be presenting an abstract showcasing early data that shows how the first-of-its-kind “booster” strategy used in the PLAT-03 trial is effective at increasing the persistence of cancer-fighting CAR T cells.

3. Targeting CD19 and CD22 appears promising:
Gardner will also be presenting an abstract showing initial results from the PLAT-05 trial, which targets CD22 and CD19 on leukemia cells simultaneously.

The data shows that 11 of 14 patients were able to achieve a complete initial remission. While the response rates are similar to the results reported for PLAT-02, Gardner and her team were particularly impressed to see how patients experienced very mild to no side effects.

Read the full article about learnings from T-cell immunotherapy trials by Alyse Bernal at Seattle Children's Hospital.