June marks the halfway point of the year, and already Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) has been able to fund more than 40 research studies. ALSF funds a comprehensive grants program designed to find improved treatments and cures for children with cancer and new for 2021, we are enthusiastic to have committed $18.5 million to four game changing, collaborative projects through the ALSF Crazy 8 Initiative. There are two emergent trends in childhood cancer research — targeted treatments and immunotherapy — that continue to offer promise for children. This quarter, I want to highlight two ALSF-funded projects that lean into those trends.
Alix Seif, MD, MPH, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is two decades into her career as a leading childhood leukemia researcher, but her journey into unlocking the potential of immunotherapy was fate from the start. During her first year of oncology fellowship, her very first patient was a young baby with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia. He was waiting for new treatment ideas after frontline therapies had failed. Then, he developed an infection, one that could’ve been life-threatening. Instead, it proved lifesaving. It left an impression, and Dr. Seif pursued that passion throughout her career. She’s followed a different route than most researchers, having transitioned from the lab to epidemiology, which studies how diseases occur in different groups of people and why. After starting out in pediatric oncology, she found the perfect partner to catalyze her career.
Before CAR T immunotherapy was approved by the FDA, it was Stephan Grupp, MD/PhD from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who delivered the first CAR T treatment to a patient. The trial worked and that first patient has been cancer-free for eight years. More children have been cured because of Dr. Grupp’s breakthrough research, including Austin, who was diagnosed with leukemia just before his third birthday. Austin had his first CAR T treatment in October 2013 and then a booster treatment in April 2014. Today, he is 14 years old and a typical teen boy. Dr. Grupp shared the promise of CAR T immunotherapy and how it can offer hope to children battling leukemia and other cancers as part of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation Childhood Cancer Lecture Series.
Each quarter, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) Director of Science, Anna C. Greene, PhD, will share some highlights from ALSF-funded researchers. In this edition, Anna highlights three studies in the blog: the first highlights improved long term outcomes for children with high-risk neuroblastoma who are given the immunotherapy dinutuximab; the second study illustrates the importance of understanding the features of relapsed medulloblastoma; and finally the last study emphasizes the importance of improved study designs to ensure more children are able to access novel therapies in clinical trial.
As researchers continue to move closer to cures for all children, there are still types of childhood cancer that continue to be incurable. In the spirit of Alex’s legacy, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation has committed $18.5 million, the single, largest funding commitment from ASLF to date, to four game-changing, collaborative projects at 15 institutions in the United States and Europe. Funded through the Crazy 8 Initiative, these projects are taking on the most deadly childhood cancers with one singular focus: curing the incurable.
One year ago, none of us expected what was to come. From lockdowns to masking to social distancing, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the entire world. For children battling childhood cancer and their families, one year in a pandemic has doubled the pressure and the uncertainty. The Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) Childhood Cancer Blog covered the pandemic and its impact on children with cancer, research and fundraising advocacy efforts. Here’s a look back at the top stories from one year in a global pandemic:
Collin was a social butterfly who loved to have fun. He was diagnosed twice with ALL, and after 12 wonderful years cancer-free, he was diagnosed with mucoepidermoid carcinoma and began fighting all over again. Sadly he passed away, but was an inspiration.
