What we fund.

Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy is helping to advance groundbreaking new therapies by funding the most promising cancer research being conducted by the boldest scientists at leading academic institutions, at innovative biotechnology companies and through unique collaborations with other key innovators.

With success in overcoming blood cancers established, our current funding priorities focus on new curative strategies for the most difficult-to-treat solid tumor cancers – glioblastoma, a brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Every study, every clinical trial, every success and even every failure strengthens the research community’s understanding of the immune system’s complexities and the biological building blocks that make cancer such a formidable foe.

Search below to learn more about Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy-funded researchers and their work to cure cancer.

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Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells benefit patients with treatment resistant B-cell leukemia, B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma, raising hopes that CAR T cells could be used to treat “solid” cancers, including breast cancer, lung cancer,…

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Crystal Mackall, MD
Stanford University

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant brain cancer that cannot be cured with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Survival of patients afflicted with this cancer is less than 15 months. Several clinical trials have failed to improve…

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E. Antonio Chiocca, MD, PhD
Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumor. Despite therapeutic advances over the past decade, the diagnosis of glioblastoma is associated with a median overall survival time of 8 months and a…

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Juan Fueyo, MD
MD Anderson Cancer Center

Children with diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) – a type of brain cancer – continue to have a dismal prognosis, and most children die within one year of diagnosis. Recent studies have shown that the majority of…

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Hideho Okada, MD, PhD
University of California San Francisco

Pancreatic cancer is a major public health problem with approximately 57,600 new cases in 2020. Five-year survival is less than 9% for all stages, with surgical resection the only potentially curative therapy. Nonetheless, a clear majority…

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Amer H. Zureikat, MD, FACS
University of Pittsburgh

Cancer immunotherapy is revolutionizing the treatment of many cancers. This revolution is being led by drugs that enhance the immune system’s T cell’s ability to kill cancer cells. This includes drugs such as Keytruda, an antibody…

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Brian Brown, PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Major types of immunotherapy include checkpoint blockade, adoptive cell transfer, recombinant cytokines, and cancer vaccines. However, only a fraction of patients show sustained clinical responses.   These challenges demand new types of immunotherapies that are more potent…

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Sidi Chen, PhD
Yale University

Many children, who are diagnosed with bone or muscle tumors (sarcomas), which have spread to more than one site in their body, cannot be cured. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop new therapies.   We…

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Stephen Gottschalk, MD
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

The immune system has many mechanisms to fight cancer, one of which is T cells. A common reason for failure of the immune system to eliminate tumors is that it does not recognize and kill “self”…

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Joseph Fraietta, PhD
University of Pennsylvania

Dendritic cells are potent antigen presenting cells capable of stimulating tumor immunity. Despite their promise as vectors for cancer vaccines, limited clinical efficacy has been observed to date. We have identified a fundamental metabolic pathway that…

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Brent Hanks, MD, PhD
Duke University Medical Center