Join NBTS’s campaign to raise awareness about the importance of biomarker testing and clinical trials for patients with brain tumors.
READ MOREImmunotherapy (sometimes called immuno-oncology) is an emerging type of cancer treatment strategy that aims to harness the body’s own immune system to detect and destroy tumor cells – just as it would a virus. However, to date, immunotherapies have yet to prove they have the same effectiveness for patients with malignant brain tumors as they have in an increasing number of cancers outside the brain. The promise and unfulfilled potential of immunotherapy as an effective strategy for treating brain tumors is what makes this approach one of the key areas of NBTS research funding.
Lead Investigators: Adilia Hormigo, MD, PhD, Leader of Neuro-Oncology Program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Project Description: Dr. Hormigo and her team’s goal is to develop a reproducible method to cultivate a patient’s own dendritic cells (a type of immune cell) from blood draws and begin training these cells to recognize and fight glioblastoma tumors.
National Brain Tumor Society teamed up with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) to host a collaborative workshop on the future of immuno-oncology for brain tumors. The workshop’s goal was to explore the state of the field, share recent data and ideas, and ultimately identify challenges and opportunities to make immunotherapy a reality for pediatric and adult patients with a brain tumor.
A report from that meeting – authored by NBTS’s Chief Scientific Officer, Kirk Tanner, Director of Research, Olga Futer, and leaders from PICI, as well as expert researchers – was published as a white paper in the Journal of Translational Medicine. The white paper offers key takeaways from the meeting and identifies promising new technologies and several proposed areas of focus and emphasis to improve the impact of immunotherapy in brain tumors.