Clinical Trials
The CCIR is a unique research program designed to cultivate a collaborative environment that allows basic and translational immunologists to work side-by-side with clinicians to accelerate the bench-to-bedside transition of innovative cancer immunotherapies, with much attention given to cancers known to relapse or be refractive to conventional treatments currently available. Many of these novel cancer immunotherapy approaches, which originated from basic science research in CCIR laboratories, are now being explored as new treatment modalities in patients, with a significant number advancing through clinical trials towards FDA approval.
Immunotherapy poses as an attractive form of alternative cancer therapy based on the versatility and adaptability of our immune system. Unlike targeted therapy and conventional chemotherapy for most cancers, immunotherapy has the advantage of providing long-term clinical benefit in some patients. To meet this end, CCIR members take advantage of resources offered by MD Anderson, including the CCSG Shared Resources, Immune Monitoring Core Laboratory and GMP Cell Facility, allowing them to follow the “bench-to-beside” approach to develop and improve cancer immunotherapy in the form of cellular therapy, a vaccine or targeting antibody, either alone or in combination with conventional therapies or newly developed therapies.
As demonstrated by the breadth of clinical trial involvement shown above, CCIR members are testing the utility of immune checkpoint blockade in lymphoma (shown by Dr. Allison to be effective against melanoma), genetic engineering in cell therapy (e.g., CD19, CXCR2, TGF-β DNR), and TLR agonists or IL-2 in vaccine formulations as well as some novel combination therapies, such as the infusion of tumor-reactive lymphocytes from HLA-matched donors who were vaccinated with a lymphoma idiotype.
Links to Additional Clinical Trial Information
Infusion of CAR T cells: Patients with advanced B cell-lineage lymphoid malignancies (NCT00968760)
Infusion of haploidentical natural killer (NK) cells: Patients with relapsed neuroblastoma (NCT00698009)
Infusion of haploidentical NK cells combined with epratuzumab (CD22-specific monoclonal antibody): Patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (NCT00941928)
TLR agonist plus vaccination with the melanoma-associated peptides gp100 and MAGE-3: Patients with metastatic melanoma with measurable disease, stage IIIC (in transient lesions) or stage IV M1A with disease that includes lesions accessible for biopsies (NCT00960752)
Adoptive T cell transfer plus dendritic cell vaccination: Patients with advanced stage of melanoma (NCT00338377)
Leuprolide plus vaccination with the melanoma-associated peptides gp100 and MAGE-3: Patients with stage IIb-IV melanoma (NCT00254397)
PR1 (leukemia-associated peptide) Vaccine: Patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndromes (NCT00004918)
Gp100 (melanoma-associated peptide) Vaccine: Patients with Stage IIb-III or stage IV melanoma (NCT00019682)
Lymphoma Idiotype Vaccine: Patients with follicular B cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NCT00089115), indolent B cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NCT00258336) or mantle cell lymphoma (NCT00020215)
Lymphoma Idiotype Vaccine plus GM-CSF: Follicular lymphoma patients undergoing first complete remission (NCT00091676)