Harnessing the immune system to fight chordoma
Extraordinary advances are being made in the development of therapies that harness the immune system to fight cancer. Several of these therapies are already in use and have revolutionized care for certain tumor types, while more than 3,000 more are in development, many of which are showing promising signs of benefit to patients. The goal of our Immunotherapy Initiative is to ensure that chordoma patients everywhere benefit from these powerful new treatment approaches as quickly as possible.
We are working to bring about effective immunotherapies for chordoma by strategically initiating and funding projects across the full research and development continuum – from basic science to clinical research.
The ultimate goal of this research is to identify or develop therapies that:
- Direct an immune response against chordoma tumors
- Make chordoma tumors more susceptible to immune attack
Most likely, these two types of therapies will need to be used in combination with one another.
We’re proud to partner with the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the world’s premier supporter of cancer immunotherapy research, for a portion of our Immunotherapy Initiative.
Currently, our investments are focused on:
Chordoma-immune interaction
Uncover how chordomas avoid destruction by the immune system to identify opportunities to utilize therapies designed to make cancer cells more susceptible to immune attack.
Immune target discovery
Discover unique features of chordoma against which existing immunotherapies could be directed, or new immunotherapies could be developed.
Early drug discovery
Apply the most promising immunotherapy technologies to create new drugs designed to attack chordoma.