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Help ACGT fund the next cancer breakthrough: your support changes lives.

For nearly 25 years, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy has been at the forefront of the transformative field of cell and gene therapy for cancer.   

Thanks to the generosity of ACGT supporters, our organization has funded innovative research that has saved lives, including the remarkable CAR T-cell therapy, now with 10 FDA-approved treatments for different blood cancers. 

Now, we face our next challenge: tackling solid tumors like pancreatic, ovarian, lung, and brain cancer, which make up 90% of cancer cases. These cancers are notoriously difficult to treat, but ACGT is funding cutting-edge cell and gene therapy research bringing new hope to patients.

Recently, ACGT awarded grants to six new researchers focusing on the most challenging pediatric cancers – bringing promising ideas together through multi-disciplinary collaborations across academic institutions and biotech. But to continue advancing this critical work, we need your help.

Will you please make a year-end donation to ACGT to help fund this critical research? 100% of your gift will go directly to funding new cell and gene therapies for cancer – ensuring that every dollar brings us closer to the next breakthrough in cancer treatment.

With your support, we can continue to push the boundaries of cancer research and offer more patients a chance at life-saving treatments. Together, we can create a cancer-free future.

Thank you for your partnership in this fight.

ACGT attended the Society for Immunotherapy for Cancer (SITC) annual meeting in Houston.

ACGT hosted a cancer cell and gene therapy lunch symposium during SITC 2025 featuring our Scientific Advisory Council members and Research Fellows. 

Shari Pilon-Thomas, PhD (Moffitt Cancer Center), ACGT Scientific Advisory Council member, presented a talk entitled, Expanding the Landscape of TIL Therapy beyond Melanoma. Dr. Pilon-Thomas discussed the challenges and potential paths forward to make TIL therapy for non-melanoma solid tumors feasible. She summarized that to succeed, researchers will need to increase the frequency of tumor-reactive TIL within tumors, improve the expansion of tumor-reactive TIL e- vivo, define the phenotype of effective TIL, and decrease toxicity.

Following Dr. Pilon-Thomas’ talk, George Coukos, MD, PhD (Ludwig Cancer Research Lausanne), an ACGT Research Fellow, presented recent work that addressed the challenges outlined by Dr. Pilon-Thomas, going deeper into what can be learned from patients who are TIL responders vs. non-responders. Dr. Coukos also commented that ACGT funding had supported his very first lab back in 2006!

The ACGT symposium also showcased an ambitious and compelling new effort by ACGT Scientific Advisory Council member and Research Fellow, Crystal Mackall, MD (Stanford University), and Catherine Bollard, MD (Children’s National Hospital). 

Drs. Mackall and Bollard have launched a non-profit organization ACCESSFORKIDS (AFK) to build a new biotech model to successfully commercialize pediatric cell and gene therapies outside of the standard venture capital-based system.

Read more about the ACGT Research Fellows who participated in SITC 2025 on our blog.

In the news

The latest on cancer cell and gene therapy from around the world.

• FDA approves Aucatzyl (obecabtagene autoleucel) a CAR T-cell therapy for adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-cell ALL)

• In a clinical trial at Stanford University, led by ACGT Scientific Advisory Council member and Research Fellow, Crystal Mackall, MD, CAR-T cells show promise against pediatric diffuse midline gliomas, brain and spinal cord tumors that are among the deadliest cancers
• Interius BioTherapeutics doses first patient with in vivo CAR T-cell therapy for B-cell Malignancies
• MD Anderson launches Institute for Cell Therapy Discovery & Innovation to deliver transformational new therapies headed up by ACGT Scientific Advisory Council member, Katy Rezvani, MD, PhD