The grant will support scientists working to make a virus more effective for more patients with this brain tumor.
STAMFORD, Conn., June 7, 2023 — Thanks to a $500,000 grant from Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT), scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, are working to make an oncolytic virus more effective against the brain cancer glioblastoma.
The grant was awarded to the co-principal investigators, Juan Fueyo, MD, and Candelaria Gomez-Manzano, MD, who become the newest ACGT Research Fellows. They are both research faculty professors in the Department of Neuro-Oncology at MD Anderson. Dr. Fueyo is also the Chief of the Section of Experimental Neuro-Oncology within the Department.
Dr. Fueyo and Dr.Gomez-Manzano are pioneers in using oncolytic virus therapies – or “virotherapy” – for brain tumors. They recently developed a platform of oncolytic viruses termed Delta-24 to treat glioblastoma, which is diagnosed in approximately 15,000 people in the U.S. annually. Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain cancer – a cancer that starts in the brain – with an average survival of 8 months.
Dr. Fueyo and Dr. Gomez-Manzano have developed a new generation of this cancer-selective oncolytic adenovirus model, Delta-24-RGD, and tested it in patients with recurrent glioblastoma, showing encouraging safety and efficacy results. Thus, 20% of patients treated with Delta-24-RGD as a single treatment survived more than three years after a single dose of this biological agent.
“Unfortunately, rapid clearance of the virus by the immune system prevents a response in a higher percentage of patients,” Dr. Fueyo said. “In addition to other pre-clinical and clinical evidence, data from our clinical trial demonstrate that to improve the percentage of patients that respond to the therapy, we need to decrease the immune response against the virus, which in turn will increase the immune response against the tumor.”
With ACGT grant funding, Dr. Fueyo and Dr. Gomez-Manzano aim to make the oncolytic virus effective for a larger percentage of patients.
“If this highly innovative project is successful, we have the resources and infrastructure already in place to further translate these two strategies, as single approaches or in combination, to treat malignant brain tumors in the clinical scenario,” Dr. Gomez-Manzano said.
“The proposal from Dr. Fueyo and Dr. Gomez-Manzano is an exciting opportunity to continue their momentum in developing an oncolytic virus therapy for people with glioblastoma,” said Kevin Honeycutt, ACGT chief executive officer and president. “This brain tumor is one of the most difficult to treat, and success has been limited using standard options such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Developing an oncolytic virus that can help the thousands of people fighting glioblastoma would be an extraordinary achievement.”
“ACGT’s Scientific Advisory Council is encouraged by the progress already made in this research, and they’re excited at the potential of further developing this novel cell and gene therapy,” said Honeycutt.
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Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT)
For more than 20 years, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT) has funded scientific research to bring innovative treatment options using cancer cell and gene therapy to people living with deadly cancers. These treatments continue to save the lives of many blood cancer patients and offer new hope to all people diagnosed with cancer. ACGT is currently focused on funding talented visionaries whose scientific advancements are driving the development of groundbreaking treatments for glioblastoma, melanoma, sarcoma, ovarian, lung, prostate, and pancreatic cancers.
100% of all public funds raised by Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy directly support research and programs. For more information, visit acgtfoundation.org, call (203) 358-5055, or join the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
