The national nonprofit CureSearch for Children’s Cancer presented a check Wednesday, June 14, 2023 for $1.2 million to help fund promising pediatric cancer research at the Wellstar Georgia Cancer Center and Wellstar Children’s Hospital of Georgia.
CureSearch awarded Dr. David Munn and Dr. Theodore Johnson at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University with this funding in conjunction with the Catapult Award, which identifies and helps propel high-potential research from the lab into the clinic and, ultimately, to the kids who need it most.
Munn and Johnson have been hard at work for several years developing anti-tumor therapies for patients with brain cancers that are actively progressing. Initially, these patients may have benefited from the groundbreaking therapy of indoximod, the first-in-class drug developed by Munn and his team in 2015 that inhibits the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO). However, for those children who have become resistant to such treatment, the introduction of ibrutinib may prove successful.
Currently, the focus is on malignant brain tumors—which, unfortunately, is an underserved area of pediatric cancer research and treatment, and there is seldom a pathway of treatment that can offer a cure. The CureSearch funding will help support a Phase 1 trial of ibrutinib/indoximod for patients at Wellstar Children’s. If successful, the novel treatment could improve the quality of life for patients at Wellstar Children’s and beyond.
CureSearch is a national nonprofit organization that only funds translational research projects with the strongest potential of becoming a new treatment and quickly reaching pediatric patients. CureSearch’s mission is to end childhood cancer by driving targeted and innovative research with measurable results in an accelerated time frame. To learn more visit curesearch.org.
The Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research and Fisher Phillips are contributors to CureSearch and helped fund this award.