Funded by 2019 Kay Yow Cancer Fund Final Four Research Award
Cancer in the ovaries is an aggressive and deadly disease with limited treatment choices. A crippled protective immune system is commonly found in patients with ovarian cancer and limits the effect of multiple treatments. We recently described a new therapy based on the transfer of immune T cells engineered to spot and kill ovarian cancer cells. These therapeutic cells are referred as FSH-CER T cells. Here, we propose a plan to boost the effects of FSH-CER T cells by promoting the growth of T cell subsets with a higher capacity to eliminate tumors. This will be done by the inhibition of key drivers of cellular stress. Thus, our data will set the basis for a therapy to efficiently treat ovarian cancer patients.
The healthcare landscape has dramatically changed in South Florida, and we welcome you to be a partner in this transformation. Miami Cancer Institute at Baptist Health South Florida opened its doors in 2016 and is now seeing nearly 1,000 patients per day. The Institute, supported by a clinical and research alliance with Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the leading academic cancer centers in the world, grants our patients access to the most advanced clinical trials for breast cancer. Patient accrual remains a huge challenge in clinical research, and the grant will go towards supporting recruitment for the important studies which in many cases, may give patients access to new therapies that are not yet readily available. The Institute will be proactive with the creation of recruitment materials as part of a well-coordinated campaign to address all aspects of enrollment as well as presenting information in an easy to understand and honest way. It is our goal to track enrollment efforts and adjust accordingly to what works best for our patient base and the community we serve. The mission of the breast clinical trial enrollment program is to provide innovative, patient centered cancer care through access to cutting edge treatment.
Only a small percentage of patients with cancer in the US enroll on to clinical trials. This is creating a bottleneck for the development of new treatments. Efforts to improve how patients are identified for clinical trials are important to overcome this problem. One such effort which is showing promise is to use an individual known as a “pre-screener” to aid the clinical team in identifying eligible patients. The pre-screener functions as an extra set of eyes to review information generated from our electronic medical record as their records come in from referring physicians. They will be trained to look for patients meeting certain eligibility criteria and then notify the clinical team about the matches ahead of their visit. This will allow the team to better prepare and notify the coordinator for the study to be available at that time. The pre-screener will also serve as a resource for patients using our clinical trial education center in the clinic waiting area to help them navigate through the available information to identify a potential trial option to discuss with their physician during their visit.
There are over 170 FDA approved chemotherapeutic medications. These medications have shown benefit to a particular segment of cancer populations, often multiple groups of patients. Because of the rarity of pediatric cancers, very few of the medications that are used to improve the lives of children with cancer are FDA approved for that specific use, so called off-label use. Incorporating new medications into childhood cancer treatment often involves testing one agent at a time across a variety of diagnoses followed by focusing on a subset or a few types of cancer. This process has been slow to identify new agents in a group of tumors known as sarcomas. Recently, there have been a significant number of medications approved and it would be impossible to test them all on patients in the manner described above. Furthermore, studies in models of sarcomas have not always been reliable predictors of the medications because they have been tested in amounts that are not achievable in humans or for durations that cannot be achieved without unacceptable side effects. We propose looking at many FDA approved agents at levels that can be safely achieved in people across a panel of sarcoma models to identify agents and then combinations of agents that can be rapidly incorporated into a disease specific trial. We aim to test these agents, and, in the coming two years, identify promising combinations in the four most common sarcomas: osteosarcoma, Ewing Sarcoma, alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma and embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.
Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue tumor in children. This cancer seems to be related to muscle cells that have not been able to mature normally. This project is investigating the manipulation certain proteins called polycomb proteins. The main goal is to determine if polycomb proteins change the production of other genes that are vital to normal cellular maturation in rhabdomyosarcoma. the hope is to define polycomb proteins as regulators of muscle development and use this information to produce new and targeted treatments for this disease.
Funded in partnership with Miami Dolphins Foundation
Having an unhealthy weight increases one’s chance of getting cancer. It also increases the chance of dying in people who already have cancer. Keeping a healthy weight is important, especially for people from Hispanic and non-Hispanic black families who have a high chance of having an unhealthy weight. A program that helps cancer survivors lead their children and grandchildren in keeping a healthy weight may help them make their own health better and may also make their children’s and grandchildren’s health better. If the program uses smartphones and tablets, it may help connect family members who are different ages. The goal of this project is to develop and test a program that uses the Internet and mobile devices to help Hispanic and/or non-Hispanic black female cancer survivors lead their families in keeping a healthy weight. The first part of the project will develop the program by getting feedback from Hispanic and non-Hispanic black female cancer survivors. The second part of the project will test the program to determine if it is possible, well-liked, and shows improvements on the weight, physical activity, and diet of cancer survivors, their children, and grandchildren.
Funding from the V Foundation was used to expand Miami Cancer Institute’s services available to breast cancer patients, particularly access to breast cancer clinical trials. The major clinical services which have been funded with the V Foundation grant award include cancer genomic profiling for twenty eight (28) women. Each participant is enrolled into MSK-12-245 (NCT # NCT01775072, see enclosed ClinicalTrials.gov description) and receives a personalized genomic profile of their specific breast cancer. These profiles help to guide clinicians with matching these women to precision therapy treatments and available clinical trials which are specific to their individual tumor mutations.
Funded by the Coopers Catch fundraiser, Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation and Dick Vitale
Melanoma arising in young patients (under age 21) has becoming an increasingly major problem in the US. Very little is known about the specific causes of melanoma in younger individuals, and the prognosis is very difficult to determine. In many cases, even whether a mole is benign or malignant is in question, adding to the stress of a difficult situation for patients and families. Newer molecular tests, developed for analyzing other forms of cancer, could potentially help establish the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment for patients, but these tests have not been validated in young patients and are usually not covered by insurance – forcing families to pay out-of-pocket when and if they can. Moffitt Cancer Center is one of the world’s leading centers for diagnosis, treatment and research in melanoma in children, adolescents and young adults. This project will involve molecular testing of the tumor specimens from patients under 21 who have known or suspected melanoma, avoiding out-of-pocket expenses for unproven technology, and the results of these tests will be correlated with standard pathology analysis and the results of medically necessary surgery (such as wide excision and sentinel node biopsy) and/or medical treatments (such as immunotherapy). The results will set the stage for larger efforts to discover why melanoma occurs in such young individuals, and for the validation of clinical tests to determine how patients should be treated – which could then be used to support insurance coverage for those tests that are most helpful.
Funded by the Coopers Catch fundraiser, Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation and Dick Vitale
In the 1970’s, cancer in children and young adults was almost always fatal. To address this, pediatric cancer doctors across the United States joined forces to do research as a group so they could figure out the best way to treat the cancers in this population. Through over 40 years, these research studies (also called clinical trials) have enabled pediatric cancer doctors to raise the cure rates to nearly 90%. That still means 1 of 10 children with cancer will unfortunately die. Over the years research has shown that children that enroll on clinical trials may have better survival than those that do not, and only around 40% of children enroll on treatment studies. A major reason some families do not enroll their children is that they are not properly educated by the medical team. In addition, African-Americans and Hispanic patients enroll at lower rates than Caucasian patients for several reasons, an important one being education about what clinical trials are all about. This project will create bilingual educational materials to teach families and patients about research protocols and their purpose. They will be less intimidated and more willing to allow their children to have access to the most cutting edge therapies and other studies available. We hope that these materials will lead to increased clinical trial participation and consequently greater cure rates.
Participation in breast clinical trials ranges from about a low of 0.5% to a high of 2-3% in patients with breast cancer. The majority of these trials have involved surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation all with substantial side effects but even when the safety profile is minimal these trials have not appealed to patients. More recently it has become clear that the immune response plays a large part in determining how well someone does when diagnosed with breast cancer. It is even possible now to utilize that immune response in the blood to predict response to therapy and predict recurrence. This means that the immune response can be used to predict cancer development, predict response to therapy and possibly improve outcomes by manipulating the immune response using immune stimulants, vaccines, cell therapies, and adoptive cell strategies to bolster the immune response to prevent recurrence. The purpose of this project is to develop an educational program in the burgeoning field of breast immunoncology for breast cancer oncologists and other physicians, patient advocates, patients and care givers to improve awareness about the immune response in breast cancer and how we can use the immune response to optimize our current therapies and where additional immune manipulations will improve outcomes. Our goal is to increase awareness about clinical trials in breast immunotherapy that ultimately increase patient accrual on studies and more rapidly move these promising modalities to clinically useful treatments for all patients with breast cancer.
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