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ACS, Stand Up To Cancer announce lung cancer research initiative
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PHILADELPHIA — Stand Up to Cancer, or SU2C, and the American Cancer Society today announced the formation of a $20 million lung cancer “Dream Team” initiative at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.
The Dream Team initiative — entitled “Targeting KRAS-Mutant Lung Cancer” — involves researchers from eight institutions. Jeffrey A. Engelman, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of thoracic oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, is the initiative’s team leader, and Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, chief of the melanoma and immunotherapeutics service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will serve as co-leader.
Jedd Wolchok
“Mutations in the KRAS gene are found in 20-25% of lung cancer patients,” Engelman said in a press release. “Drugs targeting mutated KRAS pathways in other cancers are being developed. We plan to use them in combination with immunotherapies to have a dramatic impact on patient outcomes.”
Goals of the initiative are to define the most effective therapies to target KRAS and related biological pathways, utilize the immune system in the treatment of KRAS-mutated lung cancers, and combine targeted therapies with immunotherapies in this setting. Researchers plan to evaluate immunotherapies that have shown promise in lung cancer and melanoma.
“We will combine targeted drug therapies with immunotherapy,” Wolchok said in the release. “We will apply immunological approaches to lung cancer in combination with targeted therapies, and we think this combined approach can bring about durable, long-term remissions.”
SU2C and ACS will each furnish up to $10 million over a 3-year period. Bristol-Myers Squibb will also provide $5 million to SU2C to support the Dream Team.
Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. ACS estimated that 221,000 people will be diagnosed with lung or bronchus cancer in 2015 and that 158,040 patients will succumb to the disease.
“The time is ripe for a new attack on lung cancer, especially given the recent advances in cancer immunology and immunotherapy,” Phillip A. Sharp, PhD, institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and chairman of SU2C’s Scientific Advisory Committee, said in the release. “We have a real chance to make headway against this terrible disease.”