Immunotherapy is an approach that harnesses patients’ own immune systems to recognize and destroy their tumors. In recent years, it’s shown tremendous promise against several cancers. To ensure that chordoma patients benefit from these advances as well, investing in...
Immunotherapy Initiative
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.
Strategy
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.
Currently, our investments are focused on three priorities:
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.
Future investments will include preclinical and clinical evaluation of novel immunotherapies tailored to chordoma.
In the meantime, as more is learned about the chordoma-immune interaction and potential targets are identified, these insights could point to opportunities to rapidly apply existing immunotherapies through our concurrent Drug Repurposing Initiative.
We are proud to partner with the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) – the world’s premier supporter of cancer immunotherapy research – to co-fund chordoma-focused grants through CRI’s Clinic & Laboratory Integration Program (CLIP).
Projects
| Immune checkpoint evaluation | Michael Lim, MD – Johns Hopkins | Complete |
| Making chordomas more susceptible to immune checkpoint inhibitors | Stephen Yip, MD, PhD – University of British Columbia | Ongoing |
| Endogenous T Cell Therapy | Cassien Yee, MD – MD Anderson | Ongoing |
| Multispectral immunofluorescence of chordoma | Nyall London, MD, PhD – Johns Hopkins | Ongoing |
| Molecular correlates of response to nivolumab | Michael Lim, MD – Stanford | Planned |
News
Announcing a new grant to support development of the first cell based immunotherapy for chordoma
We are pleased to announce that the Chordoma Foundation and the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) — the world’s leading nonprofit funder of cancer immunotherapy research — have together awarded a $200,000 grant to a team of researchers at The University of Texas MD...
Cancer Research Institute and Chordoma Foundation partner to advance immunotherapy research in rare cancer
The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and Chordoma Foundation announced today that they have established a research partnership to advance treatment options for chordoma, an ultra-rare cancer in the sarcoma family that occurs in the bones of the skull base and spine....
Grants awarded to two Canadian researchers address key research priorities in chordoma
At the end of 2018, the Chordoma Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) together awarded two new grants totaling $300,000 to Canadian researchers whose work in epigenetics and immunotherapy stand to have a lasting impact on chordoma treatment and care. The...