ABOUT THE IMMUNE THERAPY INITIATIVE FOR OVARIAN CANCER (ITI-OC)
The Immune Therapy Initiative for Ovarian Cancer (ITI-OC) was launched in late 2007 with the objective of supporting groundbreaking treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. ITI-OC was founded by Randall Caudill and Patricia Dunn.
With support from the ITI-OC, an FDA-approved clinical trial was launched in December of 2007 under the direction of Dr. George Coukos MD. PhD, Director of the Ovarian Cancer Research Center (OCRC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Coukos is a global leader in the application of immune therapy in treating ovarian cancer. The first phase of this clinical trial studies test advanced immune therapy for ovarian cancer based on so-called “autologous” vaccine, using a patient’s own tumor to direct the immune system to focus on fighting the patient’s cancer. Strengthening the body’s immune system response to fight cancer is critically important since, in typical situations, less than one-half of one percent of ovarian cancer patient’s immune system is naturally directed against fighting this cancer. Immune therapy and the use of a “personalized” vaccine can thus increase a patient’s cancer-fighting capacity exponentially. Thus, this is a personalized vaccine that is manufactured based solely from the patient’s own tumor and own blood cells.
The second phase of the clinical trial studies the efficacy of adoptive T-cell therapy in which a patient’s T-cells, harvested from her own white blood cells after completion of the vaccine, are primed and expanded in the laboratory, and ultimately reintroduced to the patient through transfusion to help fight the patient’s tumor. The expansion and activation of T cells in the laboratory hopes to magnify the immune response against the tumor and achieve more powerful results after completion of the vaccine. Up to 40 women are expected to be enrolled in the ITI-OC clinical trial at Penn in 2009, with potential additional clinical trial sites to be added as well in 2009 and 2010.
Penn OCRC is planning to open 3 additional clinical trials based on novel gene and immune therapy of ovarian cancer within one year. These include vaccine therapy using cells isolated directly from tumors and modified in the laboratory; T-cell therapy using T-cells isolated and expanded directly from tumors; and T-cells engineered genetically to attack tumor targets.
The fundraising goal of the ITI-OC is $3.3 million, which includes support of specific immune therapy clinical trials and research to further work in immune therapy at Penn. In addition to lead donations by Randall Caudill and Patricia Dunn, generous private donors have helped the ITI-OC to achieve nearly half its total fundraising goal within its first year. In addition the University of Pennsylvania has reduced its standard development overhead charges to facilitate the ITI-OC clinical trial and has pledged substantial financial support for the clinical immunotherapy program and patient-oriented research at the Ovarian Cancer Research Center.