Beat AML Master Clinical Trial in North Texas

LLS Investing in Cures

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is at the center of the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) innovative decision to allow a nonprofit organization to lead its own clinical trial.  The target: acute myeloid leukemia (AML).  It is the deadliest form of leukemia and has not seen a new treatment option in more than 40 years.

LLS Investing in Patients

LLS is dedicating more than $125 million to the Beat AML initiative, which is focused on creating new treatment options for AML patients.  LLS is harnessing the efforts of geneticists, pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and healthcare facilities in this revolutionary approach to creating new therapies.

LLS Investing in North Texas

Dr. Robert Collins, Jr., a member of the North Texas LLS Medical Advisory Board and LLS-funded researcher, has been charged with the task of leading the ONLY Beat AML trial in the south at UT Southwestern Medical Center Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.  Dr. Collins is currently accepting newly diagnosed AML patients as part of the Beat AML Master Trial.  Click here to learn more.

Hear More From Dr. Collins

Intrigued?  You can hear more about the Beat AML trial from Dr. Collins at the FREE North Texas Cancer Expo on Saturday, September 16th.  Registration for this session is limited and expected to fill quickly.

www.ntxcancerexpo.org

 Click on the image below to hear Dr. Collins talk about the Master Trial

Meet a Texas Researcher Funded by You

Dr. Helen Heslop is one of more than a dozen Texas researchers currently being funded by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS).  Heslop and her team work out of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and has been granted more than $6 million through 2018 in the form of an LLS SCOR grant. Below she describes her project and its potential impact on the treatment of blood cancers.

"One of the central goals of modern cancer therapy is to develop treatments that effectively kill tumor cells while sparing normal tissues. Harnessing T cells from the patient`s own immune system appears to offer one of the best strategies to achieve this result. The clinical potential of T-cell-based immunotherapy has been demonstrated many times in the laboratory and in patients with certain virus-linked cancers, but translation of these findings to the bedside has not been easy. Investigators in this SCOR, who pioneered the adoption of T-cell immunotherapy for lymphoma, now propose to translate this early success to additional blood malignancies, including multiple myeloma and acute leukemia and propose four projects designed to test novel approaches to cancer immunotherapy. PROJECT 1 asks whether banked, or “off-the-shelf,” T-cell preparations can be used successfully to treat virus-related lymphomas. PROJECT 2 will use a novel oral vaccine as a delivery system for proteins common in multiple myeloma cells, in order to stimulate more robust T-cell responses against this cancer. PROJECT 3 has modified T cells to express an artificial receptor, called a CAR, and is testing whether this addition will improve the precision of T-cell targeting of multiple myeloma. Finally, in PROJECT 4 the intent is to eradicate residual leukemia cells with T cells that have been stimulated with four different leukemia-related antigens. In all instances, the research projects are expected to interact with each other on a regular basis, so that the achievements of any single project should be greatly enhanced. Ultimately, the information generated by this SCOR proposal is expected to lead to more effective, and potentially curative, treatments for patients with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma."

The Marshall A. Lichtman Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) program is LLS' most ambitious research opportunity.  This innovative program supports interdisciplinary research across at least three independent research projects that are integrated and supported by scientific core laboratories.

Mission Monday: Texas Researcher Wins Major LLS Grant

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) today announced it has awarded four new grants through its prestigious Marshall A. Lichtman Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) research initiative, bringing the program's total funding to $285 million since its inception in 2000.

Helen E. Heslop, MD, at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX is one of four recipients of this grant. Heslop and her team of 11 colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, will expand upon previous success in mobilizing the immune system to control blood cancers by attempting to define safer, simpler, and more effective immunotherapies for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and multiple myeloma (MM). They will investigate if naturally occurring "off the shelf" cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), also known as killer T cells, can be as effective under some circumstances as engineered T cells against lymphoma. In addition, they will devise ways to augment the effectiveness of CTLs in MM and optimize strategies to isolate and expand CTLs against ALL. This research is significant because immunotherapies may produce better responses in patients compared with existing therapies. Beyond that, there is a need to reduce the complexity and cost in order to make such therapy accessible to more patients. 

The innovative SCOR program funds teams of researchers representing different disciplines and engaged in collaborative efforts to discover new approaches to treat patients with blood cancers. Each team will each receive $1.25 million a year for five years, for a total of $6.25 million. 

Mission Monday: Meet an LLS-Funded Researcher in Texas

Varsha Gandhi The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) spends millions of dollars every year supporting the work of the best and brightest blood cancer researchers around the world.  Today we introduce you to Varsha Gandhi of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.  Ghandi's work has been sponsored by LLS since 2011.  Her focus has been on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and below she describes her current project that is showing great promise.

"Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an incurable disease with a 5-year survival rate of less than 20% and the prognosis has not improved significantly in the last 20 years. Doctors estimate about 12,810 new cases of AML and 9000 deaths in the United States alone in 2009. Given these statistics, there is a clear need for new agents for the treatment of AML. Unfortunately, unlike chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), AML does not have a genetic target. However, a new class of proteins, Pim kinases, has been identified to be overexpressed in AML.  Pim kinases are proteins that are involved with the growth and survival of cancer cells and these kinases also mediate acquired drug-resistance. Pim kinases are involved with activation of the expression of genetic information from DNA into RNA, transcription, via co-operation with other proteins. A number of oncogenes, DNA genes that code for proteins that participate in cancer development and progression, have RNA transcripts (“messages”) that are quickly degraded in the cell. By inhibiting the function of Pim kinases, survival of cancers that depend on short-lived RNA is impacted. In addition to its role in transcription, Pim kinases also activate other cellular proteins that are involved with complex signaling pathways in cancer cells. The activation of a number of these Pim kinase targets are needed for leukemogenesis, proliferation, cell survival, and the development of resistance to chemotherapy. Developing new drugs against Pim kinases represent a novel strategy to selectively target leukemia cells.  This is feasible because leukemia cells such as AML blasts have significantly higher level of these proteins compared to healthy cells, thus reducing toxicity to normal cells. SGI-1776 is a small molecule that potently and selectively inhibits all three Pim kinases. This is an oral drug and is being developed by SuperGen. This agent is currently in phase I clinical trial for patients with prostate cancer. Desired plasma levels (~1 micromolar) are achieved during therapy without reaching maximum tolerated dose. A new phase I trial with SGI-1776 will initiate in hematological malignancies. Preliminary data in AML leukemia cell lines suggest that SGI-1776 prevents the activation of downstream proteins by effectively blocking the signaling pathways and preventing further cancer cell accumulation. In AML animal models, the drug shows efficacy. Using established AML cell lines and cells from patients with AML, we will investigate Pim kinase inhibitor, SGI-1776, as a new treatment for AML. Knowledge gained from these studies will be used to design new protocols and will provide biomarkers that will be tested during therapy."