It’s not uncommon for biomedical institutes as well as their funding partners to announce through press releases that a clinical trial they’re running has gotten off the ground and has started to enroll patients. For an outsider looking in, it may seem like they’re jumping the gun a bit. No patients have received the therapy. No cures have been declared. So why all the hubbub at the start?

The reality is this: the launch of a clinical trial isn’t a beginning. It represents many years of effort by many researchers and a lot of funding to take an idea and develop it into a tangible product that has been given clearance to be tested in people to potentially save their lives. That’s why this important milestone deserves to be recognized. So, we were excited to get the word out, in the form of a press release , that UCLA had announced this morning the launch of a CIRM-funded clinical trial testing a therapy for hard-to-treat cancers.

The UCLA clinical trial procedure will genetically alter a patient’s hematopoietic stem cells and T cells to give rise to a steady supply of T cells that are efficient cancer killers.

It’s estimated that metastasis, or the spread of cancer to other parts of the body, is responsible for 90% of cancer deaths. Though radiation and chemotherapy treatments can stop a tumor in its tracks, a small population of cancer stem cells in the tumor lie dormant and can evade those anti-cancer approaches. Because of their unlimited potential to divide, the cancer stem cells regrow the tumor leading to its inevitable return and spread. Oncologists clearly need new approaches to help patients with this unmet medical need.

That’s where today’s clinical trial launch comes into the picture. Dr. Antonio Ribas, a member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, and his team will genetically engineer cancer-killing white blood cells called T cells and blood-forming stem cells collected from patients to produce a protein receptor that recognizes a protein found almost exclusively on the surface of many types of cancer. When the T cells are transfused back into the patient, they can more efficiently track down and eradicate hard-to-treat cancer stem cells. At the same time, the transfused blood stem cells – which specialize into all the various immune system cells – will provide a long-term supply of T cells for continued protection against reoccurrence of the tumor.

Antoni Ribas, MD

“Few options exist for the treatment of patients whose cancers have metastasized due to resistance to current therapies,” Ribas said in the UCLA press release. “This clinical trial will allow us to try a new approach that engineers the body’s immune system to fight metastasized tumors similar to how it fights germs and viruses.”

 

And as Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President & CEO (interim), described in our accompanying press release, CIRM will be an ever-present partner to help Ribas’ team get the clinical trial smoothly out of the starting gate and provide the support needed to carry the therapy to its completion:

Maria Millan, MD

“This trial is the first step in developing a therapy that could alleviate the complications resulting from cancer metastases as well as potentially improving outcomes in cancer patients where there are currently no effective treatment options. We are confident that CIRM’s funding and partnership, in combination with the expertise provided by our Alpha Stem Cell Clinic network, will give provide critical support for the successful conduct of this important clinical trial.”

 

To learn more about this clinical trial, visit its page at clinicaltrials.gov. If you think you might be eligible to enroll, please contact Clinical Research Coordinator Justin Tran by email at justintran@mednet.ucla.edu or by phone at 310-206-2090.