Barbara Lavery on Collaborating to Develop Cancer Therapies

“We don't believe that 1 institution, 1 researcher, 1 company will ever solve the challenge of cancer, particularly for approaches that are intended to be curative, rather than just incremental. We have a current program with the Parker Institute and the Cancer Research Institute that is focused on glioblastoma and it's really wonderful. It's an enabling technology.”

The Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy is funding gene and cell therapies for the potential treatment of cancers. Among the projects they have funded are early research on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies, and macrophages. The Alliance has also partnered with Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Cancer Research Institute to help further their mission.

Recent TCR research funded by the Alliance demonstrated a reduction in the pancreatic tumor of 1 patient treated in a New England Journal of Medicine publication. CGTLive spoke with Barbara Lavery, chief program officer, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, to learn more about the Alliance, its goal, and cell and gene therapy research that it is funding.

REFERENCE

Golden D. T-cell receptor therapy works for pancreatic cancer patient. News release. Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy. July 7, 2022. https://acgtfoundation.org/news/t-cell-receptor-therapy-works-for-pancreatic-cancer-patient/