What Your Dollars Support

Immunotherapy Initiative

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are continually conducting novel research, united in the mission to ease the suffering of those with cancer and related diseases. Your support is crucial to the progress they make each day. At the 2010 Hutch Holiday Gala, attendees joined researchers in their endeavor, raising $5.6 million to help us fight this battle — and completing the $10 million Bezos family challenge for immunotherapy research.

Our researchers are leaders in the field of immunotherapy, finding ways to boost the power of the immune system by taking advantage of disease-fighting immune cells like T-cells and natural killer cells. In this report, we highlight some of the innovative thinking, dedicated workmanship and interdisciplinary cooperation that have been fueled by your generous support.

New target for therapy of leukemias and lymphomas

Drs. Stanley Riddell and Michael Hudecek recently published a paper in the journal Blood describing the development of genetically engineered T-cells that target a molecule called ROR1. Because ROR1 is present on all chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma cells, and is not present in any major adult organ, it has the potential to provide a powerful and specific immunotherapy for patients with these cancers.

A critical step for Dr. Riddell’s team before beginning the first patient trials will be to conduct safety studies in model organisms. Their rapid progress toward dramatically more effective, less toxic treatments for blood cancer patients would not have been possible without private support like yours.

Customizing therapeutic T-cells

Although T-cells can be powerful weapons in treating cancer, finding the rare T-cells in a cancer patient that are best suited for attacking his or her disease can be extremely difficult. Drs. Elizabeth Budde and Oliver Press are addressing that challenge by reprogramming other T-cells that are more abundant in patients with features that will make them effective for cancer therapy.

In particular, the researchers are genetically engineering T-cells to dramatically improve their ability to specifically target and kill cancer cells. Dr. Budde is also programming them with a molecular off switch so they can be easily shut down should these potent cells become overactive and cause unwanted side effects.

Drs. Budde and Press are currently the only team in the United States combining these two elements into their approach. They are also the only researchers in the world working to test the strategy in model organisms as a precursor to human clinical trials.

Groundwork for new clinical trial

Dr. Edus “Hootie” Warren and his colleagues Drs. Zandra Ferrufino-Ponce and Bill Bensinger have just begun a pilot study to gather the data they will need to launch a new trial of T-cell therapy in patients with multiple myeloma. Their approach involves engineering patients’ T-cells to target a molecule known as NY-ESO-1. NY-ESO-1 has proven to be a promising target for T-cell therapy in other cancers, including melanoma and sarcoma, and recent evidence has shown that it is expressed on the surface of myeloma cells.

Using private support, the team plans to engineer NY-ESO-1-specific T-cells, grow them in large quantities and evaluate their function, including their ability to target multiple myeloma cells. These preclinical studies will lay the groundwork needed to initiate a phase 1 clinical trial.

Immune cells to boost transplant success

Like their T-cell cousins, immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells are powerful disease fighters, yet they have some advantages over T-cells. For example, they aren’t susceptible to the same techniques tumors may use to evade T-cell attacks, and they don’t cause graft-vs.-host disease, a rejection process whereby donor cells attack the patient’s healthy organs.

With the help of private support, Dr. Brenda Sandmaier recently began a trial which involves infusing leukemia patients with donor NK cells shortly after blood stem cell transplant. The aim is to give patients an anti-tumor boost that will prevent cancer relapse and promote the rebuilding of their healthy, new immune systems. This approach of giving the NK cells early after transplant, rather than waiting until the patient relapses, is a novel immunotherapeutic approach.

The first patient to receive treatment as part of this trial has done well without any major complications or evidence of graft-vs.-host disease. Her disease was evaluated three months after transplant and did not show any evidence of progression. A second trial patient began treatment in March 2011. If the results continue to show promise, Dr. Sandmaier and her colleagues intend to initiate larger trials of their approach, which they hope will improve the safety and curative potential of blood stem cell transplantation.

Thank you

The Hutchinson Center thanks you again for your generous support at this pivotal time in cancer research.