UVM CANCER CENTER TO OFFER INNOVATIVE, HIGHLY EFFECTIVE NEW CANCER TREATMENT UVM Cancer Center to Offer innovative, Highly Effective New Cancer Treatment

CAR T-CELL THERAPY WILL BE AVAILABLE TO PATIENTS AT THE UVM MEDICAL CENTER, BEGINNING IN FEBRUARY 2023

CAR T-CELL THERAPY WILL BE AVAILABLE TO PATIENTS AT THE UVM MEDICAL CENTER, BEGINNING IN FEBRUARY 2023

The University of Vermont Cancer Center will offer a novel, highly effective form of cancer treatment called CAR T-cell therapy beginning in February of 2023. The Cancer Center will be the only health care institution in Vermont and northern New York to provide the treatment.

CART, as it is known, uses the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Unlike other immunotherapies, CART uses genetically modified T cells from the patient to attack cancer cells.

Approved by the FDA in 2017 for a variety of blood cancers, CAR T-cell therapy induces a “complete response”—where no remaining cancer is visible— in 50-80% of patients treated with it, depending on the cancer type, including in 70% of patients with mantle cell lymphoma and 80% with follicular lymphoma. Up to 90% of patients with these two cancers see at least a partial response, where the cancer has been significantly diminished. The therapy is typically used after other forms of treatment have been unsuccessful.

Though long-term data for CAR T-cell therapy is not yet available, the treatment has the potential to cure cancer. Of the first patients treated over 10 years ago with CAR T-cell therapy on clinical trials, few of those who achieved a complete response have seen their cancer return.

UVM CART clinic will be led by one of the first clinicians to administer the therapy

The Cancer Center’s new CART program will be led by James Gerson, M.D., who came to UVM from the University of Pennsylvania, where CAR T-cell therapy was discovered and developed.

Gerson worked directly with the team of researchers who created the therapy, led by Carl H. June, M.D., and was among the first clinicians to use it in a commercial setting.

“We are thrilled to have someone with Dr. Gerson’s expertise directing our CART clinic and offering this life-saving therapy to patients in our region,” said Randall Holcombe, M.D., M.B.A., director of the UVM Cancer Center.

Helping patients avoid upheaval in their treatment

Currently, patients in UVM’s catchment area who want CART therapy need to travel, usually to Boston, New York, or Rochester, to access it.

The remote treatment can cause significant upheaval in their lives, Gerson said, since it requires multiple episodes of care over the course of three to six months. Many patients live in the city where they’re being treated for four weeks.

“Our goal is for patients to be able to access this therapy without uprooting their lives,” he said.

CART works by training T cells—a type of white blood cell used by the immune system to kill viruses and other foreign bodies—to recognize and attack cancer cells. The treatment has multiple steps. First, T cells are removed from the patient’s blood. Then, in the lab, they’re modified by adding a receptor gene— a “chimeric antigen receptor” or CAR—that can recognize a protein on the cancer cell, latch onto it and kill the cell. Finally, cells are multiplied and given back to the patient.

At present, CART is effective only for blood cancers: lymphoma, some leukemias, and multiple myeloma. Research is ongoing to apply the method to other cancers.

A new form of immunotherapy

CAR T-cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy utilizing T cells. In other immunotherapies, patients are given a medication that prevents proteins in the immune system called checkpoints from disabling T cells, allowing them to kill cancer cells.

“Checkpoint inhibitors,” as the class of medications is known, work well for melanoma, lung and some other cancers but aren’t effective for blood cancers.

CART has some advantages over the therapy. Checkpoint inhibitors don’t have the curative potential that CART appears to have. “The therapy could make a significant difference for patients in Vermont and New York,” Holcombe said.

PHILANTHROPY + COMMUNITY OUREACH

MADE POSSIBLE BY PHILANTHROPY, THE UVM CANCER CENTER IS PLANNING A MOBILE CANCER EDUCATION AND SCREENING VEHICLE TO REACH RURAL COMMUNITIES

Survival rates improve when cancer is detected early, but for many of our rural neighbors regular cancer screenings are out of reach.

Identifying pathways for improved cancer screening and care for rural neighbors is a multi-tiered, crossdepartmental priority for the UVM Cancer Center. In an effort to bridge theory and practice, cancer survivor Jan Blomstrann has made a gift through the Trout Lily Foundation to the Cancer Center to support the design and launch of a mobile outreach vehicle—a resource that’s proven effective in improving health care utilization in rural areas elsewhere in the country.

The new vehicle will enable clinicians to conduct skin checks to detect potential abnormalities, blood analyses for genetic screening and research, and share education materials to empower patients in their health maintenance. Cuttingedge camera technology will provide a real-time link to cancer experts at the hospital while body composition devices and other equipment will readily evaluate other known factors that predispose people to cancer. The vehicle will deliver information to help people today while generating data to benefit future generations through cancer research.

PHILANTHROPY + RESEARCH

THE BUTLER FAMILY FOUNDATION FUND FOR CANCER RESEARCH SUPPORTS THE CUNNIFF LAB IN EFFORT TO DISCOVER AND ADVANCE TREATMENTS FOR MALIGNANT MESOTHELIOMA

The Cunniff Lab, led by cancer center member Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., has received funding from the newly established Butler Family Foundation Fund for Cancer Research at the University of Vermont Cancer Center to support research focused on malignant mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that affects the lining of the lungs or abdomen of people typically exposed to asbestos fibers. In rare instances this deadly disease is hereditary in nature. The Butler Fund was established by the Butler family in memory of two loved ones lost to mesothelioma.

The Cunniff Lab, in collaboration with RS Oncology, LLC, a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been working on the development of a novel drug known as RSO-021 for malignant mesothelioma and other diseases. RS Oncology is currently treating patients with RSO-021 as part of its ongoing Phase 1/2 MITOPE clinical trial in the United Kingdom.

The new funding from the Butler Family will support work in the Cunniff Lab focused on identifying signature biomarkers most responsive to this new treatment.

PHILANTHROPY + CLINICAL CARE

GAS FOR GRAMMY: GROWING UP, JENELLE HARDY KNEW CANCER. A CLOSE FAMILY FRIEND HAD BATTLED THE DISEASE FOR YEARS, MAKING TRIPS TO BOSTON EVERY MONTH FOR TREATMENT.

After her grandmother, Deborah, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2020 and had to make those same trips, the financial truth of being treated in a city 250 miles away hit home for Jenelle, then an 11th grader at Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, Vermont. When Deborah passed away in March of 2022, Jenelle was heartbroken. Troubled by the income disparity that made the treatment her family could afford inaccessible to so many others, she decided to launch a campaign raising money for gas cards for cancer patients.

“Both of us posted on Facebook, and then friends shared and their friends shared, and in the end we raised over $3,100,” Jenelle’s mother, Jenifer said. “Gas for Grammy,” as they called the program, was born. The Hardys donated the funds to the UVM Cancer Center, which used them to the purchase 126 $25 gas cards, distributing them to cancer patients in the hematology/oncology and radiation clinics. Most were gone within weeks.