UCLA and Parker Institute renew alliance to advance cancer immunotherapy

University of California – Los Angeles Health SciencesOct 16 2024

UCLA and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) have renewed their alliance to advance research in cancer immunotherapy and accelerate the development of curative treatments for the most difficult-to-treat cancers. The collaboration is backed by a substantial new investment from PICI, which recently committed $125 million to expand research efforts across a collaborative consortium of immuno-oncology academic research institutions.

Our continued partnership with PICI is a testament to the incredible progress we’ve made in the field of cancer immunotherapy. With PICI’s support, we are not only advancing our research, but also fostering the next generation of scientists who will drive future breakthroughs in cancer treatments.”

Dr. Antoni Ribas, director of the PICI Center at UCLA and director of the tumor immunology program at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

UCLA is one of the founding institutions that joined the PICI Network in 2016 to maximize the potential of cancer immunotherapy research, which was supported by an initial $250 million gift from tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker.

In addition to UCLA, PICI has established research centers at UCSF, Stanford Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, Gladstone Institutes, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Weill Cornell Medicine. PICI also supports world-class research at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, City of Hope, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Basel, University of Pittsburgh, University of Southern California and Washington University in St. Louis.

“UCLA’s innovative approaches to cancer immunotherapy, from novel cell therapies to groundbreaking clinical trials, exemplify why we’ve committed $125 million to expand research efforts across our collaborative network,” said Dr. Shane Corcoran, senior vice president of strategy and operations at PICI. “This renewed partnership isn’t just about funding-;it’s about rapidly translating the pipeline of innovative science to life-saving treatments for patients, setting a new pace for the entire field of cancer immunotherapy.”

The PICI research model unites the world’s leading researchers, clinicians and industry partners to fuel discovery in cancer immunotherapy. This collaborative approach has yielded over 460 research projects and clinical trials to date, including work led by researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center who are investigating innovative cell therapies that use genetically modified immune cells to treat cancer.

With early support from PICI, UCLA researchers launched a pioneering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy trial that attacks cancer cells by simultaneously recognizing two targets – CD19 and CD20 – that are expressed on B-cell lymphoma and leukemia.

Led by Dr. Yvonne Chen and Dr. Sarah Larson from UCLA, the team treated 11 patients, with 10 of the 11 patients responding to the treatment, and eight achieving a complete response. The UCLA-led research team is now in the process of developing a dual target CAR T treatment for patients with multiple myeloma and looking at replicating this work in solid tumors.

By leveraging the vast PICI network and its resources, UCLA has also opened one of the first multi-site clinical trials using CAR T-cells to treat patients whose tumors express a protein called IL13Ra2, which is most commonly found among patients with melanoma, as well as some thyroid cancers and several rare tumor types including neuroendocrine tumors, adrenocortical carcinoma, paraganglioma, and pheochromocytoma. The team includes PICI investigators from Stanford and City of Hope, which represents an important partnership to help expand access to novel CAR T-cell therapies within California.

PICI has also provided support to early-career researchers at UCLA, who are looking to better understand the factors that determine which tumors will respond to immunotherapy and which won’t, and investigate how T-cell responses can be pharmacologically improved in the fight against cancer. Furthermore, PICI is supporting projects aimed at increasing the diversity of trainees in cancer immunology and improving the access to novel immunotherapy-based clinical trials for underserved patient populations.

“We are on the cusp of a new era in cancer treatment, and it’s organizations like PICI that allow us to take bold steps forward,” said Dr. Owen Witte, co-director of the PICI Center at UCLA and founding director emeritus of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center. “Together, we are not just working toward the next breakthrough – we are building a foundation for the future of cancer care.”