Target discovery
All future treatments for chordoma patients will depend on a deep understanding of the biology of our disease: what drives it and what its weaknesses are.
Improve the outlook
We've put a plan in place to make chordoma a manageable disease. With the help of everyone affected, we could get there in time to help people facing chordoma today.
Our search for better treatments
Together, we’ve already changed much of what it means to face chordoma.
Yet the pressing need remains for better treatments. In the years ahead, our sights are set on treatments that can prevent recurrence, eliminate tumors rather than just slow their growth, and preserve patients’ quality of life. And thankfully, snowballing advances provide ever more tangible reasons to believe this is not only possible but probable.
When the Chordoma Foundation was founded in 2007, there was virtually no chordoma research being done and no infrastructure to enable it. Today, thanks to the extraordinary commitment of everyone affected by this disease, we've assembled a vibrant research community, created the scientific resources to make meaningful research happen, and seen therapies reach clinical trials. Our key achievements so far include:
Our next big leap
In early 2022, we took the next step in accelerating new chordoma treatments by establishing our own laboratory. It's the first lab 100% dedicated to chordoma research, and our most powerful tool yet for progress.
Chordoma Foundation Labs is making it easier and more efficient to test new treatment ideas from anywhere in the world, and to significantly shorten the time from new biological insights to clinical trials.
For the first time, there's a credible path to far better treatments for chordoma patients — treatments that don’t just slow the disease down, but that have a real chance of enabling patients to get on with our lives. To achieve this ambitious goal at a pace that matches our shared sense of urgency, we're advancing a comprehensive research roadmap through multiple complementary initiatives that span every stage of treatment development.
Our investments to date, coupled with the new capabilities and speed afforded to us by Chordoma Foundation Labs, are leading to a rapid expansion of our clinical trials pipeline: This year and next, more well-justified therapeutic concepts will be ready to move from the lab into clinical trials than over the past five years combined.
All future treatments for chordoma patients will depend on a deep understanding of the biology of our disease: what drives it and what its weaknesses are.
Repurposing and repositioning existing drugs that may also work against chordoma allows us to bring new treatments to patients faster than developing new drugs from scratch.
Extraordinary advances are being made in the development of therapies that harness the immune system to fight cancer; our goal is to ensure that chordoma patients benefit from these powerful new approaches, too.
A large body of research points to a protein called brachyury as the key driver of chordoma and its most critical vulnerability. We're bringing every plausible technology to bear to create brachyury-targeting drugs.
Ensuring children benefit from our advances
Pediatric chordoma may differ in important ways compared to the disease in adults, so we’re working to better understand its potentially unique biology and determine the best treatment approaches for children.
To that end, we’re collecting precious pediatric chordoma tumor samples, testing drugs against pediatric chordoma models, and looking for new vulnerabilities to target.
View a list of research publications that have resulted from the Chordoma Foundation's work, resources, and support.
Tremendous ongoing support from everyone in our community makes us more optimistic than ever that we'll witness a completely new chordoma treatment landscape in our lifetimes. Thank you for giving patients and families real reasons for hope.
Research
The trial results demonstrate that a subset of chordoma patients benefit from afatinib for a sustained period, and create an urgent need to identify biomarkers that can predict a response to EGFR inhibitors.
Learn moreResearch
The search for better treatments for advanced chordoma just took another step forward.
Learn moreResearch
This paper represents the first notable findings to emerge from the chordoma cohort of the National Cancer Institute's Natural History Study of Rare Solid Tumors.
Learn moreTaking action
Kathy Giusti's book is a roadmap for navigating a cancer diagnosis and its aftermath. It's also a testament to the power of learning, support, and action — a framework that many people in the chordoma community also embrace and exemplify.
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