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Gregory Friedman, M.D., has received a special grant to test various therapy combinations with a form of the herpes virus to improve anti-tumor immune response in children battling brain cancer.
(Photo by: Steve Wood)The Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research has awarded more than $100,000 to Gregory Friedman, M.D., a professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s and Children’s of Alabama’s Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology. The funding allows Friedman to advance his clinical trials and research on treatments for brain tumors in children.
Pediatric patients with cancerous gliomas normally survive for 18 months despite surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. At recurrence, survival is less than six months. Friedman, who is also a research scientist at the UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, began studying pediatric gliomas — tumors that are formed in the brain and spinal cord — in hopes of providing a less toxic alternative to chemotherapy.
In a phase 1 trial, Friedman and colleagues successfully initiated an immune response by injecting HSV-1 G207, a modified form of a cold-sore virus, into 12 patients. When injected into malignant brain tumors, the virus selectively entered tumor cells and replicated. This killed the cells and released the virus’s progeny to hunt out other tumor cells. Importantly, the virus stimulated immune cells to travel to the tumor, creating a favorable environment for the immune system to attack the tumor. The results were encouraging; 11 of the 12 patients responded to the therapy, and more than half lived greater than 12 months with several long-term survivors. A first-in-human phase 1 trial of G207 is ongoing to test the safety and effectiveness of it in recurrent, malignant pediatric cerebellar tumors such as medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children.
Supporting Friedman’s work since 2013, Rally says The New England Journal of Medicine’s feature of his phase 1 trial provided the foundation with scientific evidence to encourage its supporters to provide bridge funding to expedite the research to phase II, in which he will test various therapy combinations with G207 to improve the anti-tumor immune response.
Read more about phase 1 of Friedman’s trial here.
“Rally’s continuous support has been critical and has made our research for improved, targeted therapies for pediatric brain tumors possible,” Friedman said. “My hope is that this work will allow these children to live longer, happier lives.”
The Rally Foundation’s Bridge to a Cure, a special one-day fundraiser, engaged many of Rally’s brain tumor families and supporters to donate $100,000 to advance Dr. Friedman’s new phase of research.