On July 27, 2022 Novocure reported the recipients of the 4th Annual AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-Novocure Grants for Tumor Treating Fields Research Program (Press release, NovoCure, JUL 27, 2022, View Source [SID1234617028]). The AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-Novocure Grants for Tumor Treating Fields Research Program represents a joint effort between Novocure and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) to promote and support innovative research on Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) . The AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) is the world’s first and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research and its mission to prevent and cure cancer.
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Such collaborations help to deepen the understanding of TTFields’ mechanism of action and to identify its optimal use. Extensive preclinical and clinical evidence provides the foundation upon which Novocure executes its strategy to advance TTFields through additional clinical research studies across multiple solid tumor types.
Professor Wafik El-Deiry, M.D., Ph.D., FACP, Director of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University and Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School, is one of the grant recipients. His hypothesis is based on a prediction that therapeutic agents that trigger cell stress pathways in different ways may cooperate to achieve a greater therapeutic effect in various cancers.
Over the past year, Dr. El-Deiry, an expert in cancer biology, has become interested in TTFields and their potential to affect the integrated stress response, a signaling network within cells that is related to their survival. His research group will combine TTFields with other therapies, including the oral drug ONC201, and study how the combinations affect the integrated stress response in various cancer types.
"I’m a practicing clinical oncologist. I see patients every week," said Dr. El-Deiry. "I’m well aware of the genes that contribute to tumor progression, drug resistance, and failure of the immune response, and clearly we need to do better. There’s a certain skillset that I think we have, to be able to design and propose rational combinations in different tumor types to achieve tumor regression with limited toxicity. I look forward to researching how TTFields, when used in combination with other therapies, affects many different solid tumor types."
Recipients of the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants will receive a total of $250,000 over two years.
"Congratulations to the recipients of the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants," said Uri Weinberg, Novocure’s Chief Science Officer. "We are honored to collaborate with the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) to support research to unlock new insights about TTFields that could lead to new treatment strategies for aggressive cancers. We wish the award recipients success as they pursue this important research."
2022 AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-Novocure Tumor Treating Fields Research Grants
Wafik El-Deiry, M.D., Ph.D., FACP; Brown University; Integrated Stress Response induction by TTFields + ONC201 in cancer treatment
Matthew R. Sarkisian, Ph.D.; University of Florida; Improving TTFields Efficacy by Altering Ciliogenesis
Stuart Smith, Ph.D.; University of Nottingham; Combining Tumor Treating Fields with Ion Channel Blockade
ABOUT TUMOR TREATING FIELDS
Tumor Treating Fields, or TTFields, are electric fields that disrupt cancer cell division. Fundamental scientific research extends across more than two decades and, in all preclinical research to date, TTFields have demonstrated a consistent anti-mitotic effect. TTFields therapy is intended principally for use together with other standard-of-care cancer treatments. There is a growing body of evidence that supports TTFields’ broad applicability with certain other cancer therapies, including radiation therapy, certain chemotherapies and certain immunotherapies. In clinical research and commercial experience to date, TTFields therapy has exhibited no systemic toxicity, with mild to moderate skin irritation being the most common side effect. The TTFields global development program includes a network of preclinical collaborators and a broad range of clinical trials across all phases, including four phase 3 pivotal trials in a variety of tumor types. To date, more than 24,000 patients have been treated with TTFields therapy.