Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at Texas Children’s Cancer Center and the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Methodist published results of a phase I clinical trial of a novel immunotherapy for high-risk sarcomas in the journal Nature Cancer.

The therapy uses chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells engineered to target the HER2 protein, which is overexpressed on the surface of sarcoma cells. Sarcoma is a type of solid cancer that develops in the bones and soft tissues. The HEROS 2.0 trial showed that this therapeutic approach is safe and is associated with clinical benefit.

“CAR T cell therapy has been a highly successful strategy for recurrent or high-risk leukemias or lymphomas, but challenges remain in using this therapy for solid tumors,” said first and corresponding author Dr. Meenakshi Hegde, associate professor of pediatrics – hematology and oncology at Baylor and pediatric oncologist at Texas Children’s Cancer Center. “The results of this trial show that we are moving the dial in harnessing the power of CAR T cells as an effective anticancer therapy for sarcomas.”