PNOC Immunotherapy Webinar June 2, 2022

Learn about the about promising developments of immunotherapy in clinical trials for children with high grade tumors including DMG / DIPG, medulloblastoma, ATRT, ependymoma and other tumor types.Dr. Sabine Mueller Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC) Project Leader; Professor, Neurology, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences.

Dr. Jessica Foster Pediatric Neuro-oncologist, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Co-leader, Pacific Pediatric Neuro-oncology Consortium (PNOC) Immunotherapy Working Group. Dr. Foster runs a laboratory developing immunotherapy for pediatric central nervous system tumors, specifically focused on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.

Dr. Nicholas Vitanza Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Medicine; Pediatric Neuro-oncologist, Seattle Children’s Hospital. Dr. Vitanza directs the Vitanza Lab at Seattle Research Institute's Ben Town Center for Childhood Cancer Research and he serves as Seattle Children's CNS CAR T cell Lead and DIPG Research Lead. He has written and directed 3 CNS CAR T cell trials that have delivered over 225 intracranial CAR T cell doses to children with recurrent CNS tumors and DIPG with preliminary findings published in Nature Medicine.

Dr. Jasper van der Lugt Pediatric Oncologist, lead of the neuro-oncology subdivision of the Trial and Data Center; Princess Maxima Center, Netherlands. At this position he is responsible for implementation and development for early phase trials. His research focus is on clinical and translational (cellular) immune therapy for children with a CNS malignancy. He is a member of the independent ethics committee (IEC) of the University Medical Center of Utrecht.

Dr. Hideho Okada Professor of Neurosurgery, University of California, San Francisco, member of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Associate Editor, Neuro-Oncology. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Okada has been dedicated to brain tumor immunology and the development of effective immunotherapy for brain tumor patients for over 25 years. His team was one of the very first to discover cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes in glioma-associated and glioma-specific antigens. Dr. Okada also found critical roles for the integrin receptor very late activation antigen (VLA)-4 and the chemokine CXCL10 in facilitating the entry of CTLs to the brain tumor site. Dr. Okada has translated these discoveries into a number of innovative immunotherapy clinical studies in both adult and pediatric brain tumor patients.

The Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC) is an international consortium with centers within the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. We are dedicated to bringing new therapies to children and young adults with brain tumors. Our goal is to improve outcomes by translating the latest findings in brain tumor biology into better treatments for these children.

The PNOC Foundation was founded to support the work of Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC), formed in 2012 at UCSF, to provide access to personalized treatment strategies and ultimately improve overall outcomes for children with brain cancer and tumors. Since its inception, PNOC has pushed beyond older paradigms and historic trial designs, expanding nationally and globally to accelerate clinical trial completion and find cures faster. Through the cooperative open-source network, PNOC is fostering worldwide collaboration with the world’s leading pediatric brain tumor specialists. PNOC has grown from a 7-member group along the West Coast to a global consortium with 43 participating sites, funded largely by philanthropy.

To learn more about PNOC Consortium visit https://pnoc.us
To see PNOC's clinical trials visit: https://pnoc.us/clinical-trials/
If you are interested in supporting PNOC's research visit: https://www.pnocfoundation.org or email [email protected]